Intensive insulin management regimens can be burdensome for older patients with diabetes, and treatment guidelines currently err on the side of making these regimens less complicated. In an intervention study, researchers simplified the insulin regimens of 65 patients with an average age of 76. They found that study participants scored their diabetes-related stress lower post-intervention at the five-month mark, and stress levels remained low after eight months.
Overall, the regimens were simplified without compromising glycemic control, the researchers concluded. They also found that HbA1c levels, a blood marker measured in diabetes, did not correlate with patients’ low blood sugar duration before or after implementing a simplified regimen, suggesting that HbA1c is a poor predictor of low blood sugar risk in diabetic patients.
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