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Blood sugar sensor improves diabetes control
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People with type 1 diabetes have to
constantly check their blood sugar levels, a chore that involves
finger pricks and test strips and a special meter. That might all
become a thing of the past with an implanted blood glucose monitor
that provides a continuous reading.
Moreover, people using such a device have significantly fewer episodes
of high or excessively low blood glucose levels (that is, hyperglycemia
or hypoglycemia), physicians report in the medical journal Diabetes
Care.
Although intensive diabetes control is associated with better outcomes,
it is also linked to more frequent episodes of hypoglycemia, Dr.
Satish K. Garg, at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center
in Denver, and associates note. They theorized that real-time continuous
glucose readings would increase the amount of time patients maintained
blood sugar levels in the normal range.
For their study, 15 patients with type 1 diabetes had DexCom glucose
sensors implanted under the skin of the abdomen.
The device is a sensor about the size of an AA battery that transmits
radio signals to a pager-sized receiver. Glucose levels are determined
every 30 seconds, and data are transmitted to the receiver every
5 minutes. Vibratory and auditory alarms go off when glucose levels
are too high or too low.
During the first part of study period, lasting about 50 days, blood
glucose levels were stored in the receiver, but were not made available
to physicians or patients. During a second period, averaging 44
days, the receiver displays were activated. Participants were asked
to monitor their blood glucose levels at least twice daily with
a traditional self-monitoring device and whenever an alarm sounded.
During the second period, patients spent on average 47 percent
less time per day in the hypoglycemic range and 25 percent less
time in the hyperglycemic range than they did during the first phase
of the study.
Garg's group suggests that infrequent self-monitored blood glucose
measurements fail to provide patients with enough information to
avoid low blood sugar levels. They suggest that, by decreasing high
and low swings in the glucose levels, continuous glucose readings
may reduce the long-term complications of diabetes.
SOURCE: Diabetes Care, March 20048.
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