Health Buzz: Diabetes Drug Setback and Other Health News

Diabetes Drug Gets Delayed in the United States

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration postponed the approval of alogliptin, a drug to treat type 2 diabetes. Shares in Takeda, the drug's maker and Japan's most profitable drug company, went down when the company announced the drug may not be approved until after 2012, Reuters reports. The FDA requested further studies indicating that the drug does not produce cardiovascular risks. The promising therapy was supposed to take the place of Takeda's Actos, a top-selling drug for diabetes. The patent on Actos will expire in 2011, Reuters reports.

Read how to battle type 2 diabetes with diet and exercise. Learn how to gauge your risk for developing diabetes, and find out about this novel approach to managing diabetes.

Exercise Boosts Your Brainpower; Intensity May Matter

Cognitive enrichment activities—puzzles, social interaction, and the like—may help you preserve brain function as you age. But physical activity may be just as important, according to a review article published last week by the Association for Psychological Science. "What is most impressive to us," the authors write, "is the evidence demonstrating benefits of aerobic physical exercise on cognitive functioning in older adults." Many different mechanisms are thought to be responsible for the exercise-brain connection, including a growth factor called FGF-2 that is produced by exercise and is thought to be involved in the generation of new neurons, U.S. News's Katherine Hobson reports. When you exercise more intensely, your brain produces human growth hormone that cuts belly fat, adds muscle, and "pump[s] up" brain volume, says one expert.

Learn how exercise benefits the brain. Research suggests aerobic exercise might help people manage anxiety, stress, depression, the effects of aging, and even attention deficit disorder. And a 2003 study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine found that people over 75 who danced, read, or played board games or musical instruments also had a lower rate of dementia. Here are other ways to keep your brain fit.

Searching for an Egg Donor? Check Out a New Website

A new website called Donor Network Alliance launched last week with the mission of pairing couples with potential egg donors. Similar to a multiple listing service used by real estate agencies, the site includes listings from 20 different egg donor agencies. Prospective parents enter their search preferences—hair color, eye color, education level, race, nationality, religion, location—and out pops a list of potential donors, with their profile photos and a way to contact the agency representing them, U.S. News's Deborah Kotz reports. The site has about 1,000 donors, and plans are in place to download 2,000 more in the coming weeks, according to its cofounder. In addition to the fees couples pay agencies and donors, which range widely from state to state and run from about $5,000 to $12,000, users will pay an additional $100 for two weeks' use of service.

Check out the best approach for fighting infertility. Here are 4 fertility tips for dad that include keeping your weight in check and limiting foods like tofu, soybeans, and soy milk, which contain estrogenlike chemicals that in some animal studies seemed to lower sperm counts.

— Megan Johnson

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