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This is a central principle of diabetes treatment: monitor blood sugar closely, then adjust your food regimen, exercise, and medications to maintain it in a very good range. And it is sensible. Poor blood sugar control is a significant risk factor for complications of diabetes, including kidney disease, vision loss, and nerve damage.
Although efforts to rigorously monitor and control blood sugar in diabetes are worthwhile, “tight control” isn't all the time helpful—and may even cause harm. For example, in studies of individuals with long-standing type 2 diabetes, the kind that typically begins in maturity and is extremely related to obesity, those with strict control had either no profit or heart disease. Morbidity and death rates were high. Meanwhile, studies of individuals with type 1 diabetes — the kind that begins in childhood due to an immune attack against insulin-producing cells within the pancreas — suggest that tighter control might help protect against heart disease. Therefore, it seems that the advantages and risks of strict controls depend upon the situation.
Home blood sugar monitoring for type 2 diabetes
People with diabetes are sometimes advised to examine their blood sugar levels at home by pricking their finger and testing the blood with a glucose meter. They can review results with their doctors over the phone, online or at their next office appointment. Its value for individuals with type 2 diabetes is uncertain.
In a ___ the study Published in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers enrolled 450 individuals with type 2 diabetes, none of whom were taking insulin. They were randomly assigned to one among three groups:
- No self-monitoring of blood sugar
- Self-monitor blood sugar once each day
- Self-monitoring of blood sugar once each day with “improved feedback” from their blood glucose meter is meant to teach and motivate study volunteers.
After a yr, the researchers found that in comparison with those that no In self-monitoring of blood sugar, those that self-monitored had no improvement in blood sugar control and no improvement in quality-of-life measures.
so what?
The impact of this study could possibly be huge. Of the enrolled study subjects, three-quarters performed routine blood sugar testing at home. If that is common for individuals with type 2 diabetes, the findings could allow hundreds of individuals to stop sticking to themselves and lower your expenses on monitoring devices, with no in poor health effects on their health.
But even when these findings are confirmed, there should still be situations when home monitoring remains to be useful and necessary. For example, home monitoring could also be a very good idea when people like those on this study:
- Development of an infection
- Change the dose of their diabetes medication.
- Add or stop taking one among their medications.
- Gaining or losing a major amount of weight
- Start taking insulin.
This study didn't examine these conditions and due to this fact cannot draw any conclusions about them. It can also be price noting that this study only lasted for one yr. Home monitoring may take longer to see advantages. Finally, this study didn't include individuals with type 1 diabetes, so the outcomes may not apply to them.
The bottom line
This latest study suggests that doctors treating individuals with type 2 diabetes may not have to recommend routine self-monitoring of blood sugar. However, while this may increasingly be true for the common person with type 2 diabetes who isn't taking insulin, we are going to need more studies and long-term studies to find out which individuals with type 2 diabetes can profit from home monitoring. Most will profit and when it's just not well worth the effort.