Diabetes

Elements of the newly published 2012 ADA/EASD position statement on management of type 2 diabetes may stir some debate. But the pivotal role the writers assign to durable lifestyle change won’t. Here, Dr Charles Shaefer, Jr, highlights and advocates for the 3 primary goals of lifestyle modification.

The American College of Physicians (ACP) has recently published its updated guidelines for type 2 diabetes (T2DM) management. While touted as "new," these guidelines offer no real breakthroughs in understanding. Our blogger offers a perspective; we’d like to hear yours.

Diabetes is a demanding and difficult chronic disease. Life changes dramatically for a patient and his or her family once the diagnosis is made. Nutritional food choices, increased physical activity, multiple medications, visits to a physician, and blood tests are no longer optional. They now are a means of changing the length and quality of life. The patient has to rapidly become knowledgeable about nutritional content of any food he eats, different ways to be active, blood glucose testing, medication doses and side effects, and new words and abbreviations, such as A1c, LDL, HDL, and triglycerides.

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is an epidemic with serious and fatal complications. Some predictions estimate that 440 million persons will have this disease by 2030. Current recommendations state that patients with type 2 diabetes who are receiving monotherapy and who have elevated hemoglobin A1c levels between 7.6% and 9.0% should receive a second agent.

Your patient is a middle-aged man with type 2 diabetes who wants to start a weight-training program. What recommendations would you offer him? Another patient with diabetes has peripheral neuropathy; which types of exercise are safest for her? Answers to these and other questions about physical activity by patients who have diabetes mellitus can be found in guidelines from the American Diabetes Association. Highlights of those recommendations are presented here.

Intensive control of blood glucose levels reduces the development and progression of certain microvascular complications of type 2 diabetes but does not reduce cardiovascular risk, according to the Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes (ACCORD) study investigators.

This generation’s diabetic control is preceded by the ever-present adjective “intensive.” Although a lower A1c seems to be a rational, and in many instances a proven target for type 2 diabetes with its constellation of micro- and macrovascular complications, are there downsides when prescribing exactly how low one’s A1c should go?

Dr Robert Gabbay discusses strategies to improve patient compliance with insulin therapy.

How can you determine whether your patient with newly diagnosed diabetes has type I or type II disease?

Only 7% of patients with diabetes have reached goals for hemoglobin A1c, LDL cholesterol, and blood pressure. What can be done to help more patients achieve their goals? In this 2-part interview, Dr Edward Shahady shows how group visits can help your patients with diabetes better control their disease and reduce their risk of diabetic complications.