For some diabetics, burden of care rivals complications ...( Many patients with diabetes say that...),Health

Many patients with diabetes say that the inconvenience and discomfort of constant therapeutic vigilance, particularly multiple daily insulin injections, has as much impact on their quality of life as the burden of intermediate complications, researchers from the University of Chicago report in the October 2007 issue of Diabetes Care.

A typical diabetes patient takes many medications each day, including two or three different pills to control blood sugar levels, one or two to lower cholesterol, two or more to reduce blood pressure, a daily aspirin to prevent blood clots, plus diet and exercise. As the disease progresses, the drugs increase, often including insulin shots.

"The people who care for patients with a chronic disease like diabetes think about that disease and about preventing long-term complications," said study author Elbert Huang, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. "The people who have a chronic disease think about their immediate lives, which includes the day-to-day costs and inconvenience of a multi-drug regimen. The consequences are often poor compliance, which means long-term complications, which will then require more medications."

Despite growing reliance on such complex multi-drug regimens, large proportions of patients with type-2 diabetes continue to have poorly controlled glucose (20%), blood pressure (33%) and cholesterol (40%).

"This tells us that we need to find better, more convenient ways to treat chronic illness," Huang said. "It is hard to convince some patients to invest their time and effort now in rigorous adherence to a complex regimen with no immediate reward, just the promise of better health years from now," Huang said.

"This certainly rings true to me," agreed diabetes specialist Louis Philipson, MD, PhD, professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, who was not part of the research team. "Some patients, if you judge by their behavior, would r
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