TUESDAY, Nov. 18 (HealthDay News) -- Gleevec, a wonder drug that effectively treats leukemia and other cancers, may also reverse type 1 diabetes, University of California San Francisco, researchers report.

As diabetes is rapidly becoming one of the world's most common diseases, its financial cost is mounting, too, to well over $200 billion a year in the U.S. alone, according to a new study.

Drugs used to control diabetes may lower the risk of prostate cancer, investigators at the University of Tampere in Finland report.

Diabetes is a disorder in which the body either does not produce enough insulin or does not use the hormone properly to move sugar from the bloodstream into cells to be converted to energy.

LEBANON — With a dramatic rise in type 2 diabetes here, Wilson County schools are pinning their hopes on early intervention to make children more resistant to the disease as they age.

According to findings from a National Diabetes Economic Barometer study, undiagnosed, pre-diabetes and diabetes cost the United States an estimated $217.5 billion in 2007 due to higher medical expenditures and lost productivity. The research shows that beyond the estimated $174 billion that is widely-accepted as the cost of diagnosed diabetes in 2007, an additional $18 billion was spent on 6.