DALLAS Aug. 11, 2009 People diagnosed with type 2 diabetes often resist taking insulin because they fear gaining weight, developing low blood sugar and seeing their quality of life decline.
A study recently completed at UT Southwestern Medical Center suggests that those fears are largely unfounded and that patients and physicians should consider insulin as a front-line defense, as opposed to a treatment of last resort for non-insulin-dependent diabetes.
"We found that those patients who received insulin initially did just as well, if not better, than those who didn't receive insulin," said Dr. Ildiko Lingvay, assistant professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern and lead author of the study appearing online and in a future issue of Diabetes Care. "This reinforces the idea that insulin treatment is a viable and safe option for patients, even in the very initial stages of their diagnoses.
"There is a myth out in the community, especially among certain ethnicities, that insulin is the last resort, and that somebody started on insulin is going to die," Dr. Lingvay added. "We as physicians are responsible for teaching the patient that that's not the case."
More than 20 million Americans have type 2 diabetes. Obesity, age and lack of exercise all increase the risk for the disease, which is characterized by a progressive loss of insulin-producing beta cells. Diabetes is the single greatest independent risk factor for heart disease, as well as a contributor to a number of other medical problems, including blindness and kidney disease.
The standard initial treatment for type 2 diabetes is a single drug, often metformin, followed by the addition of more oral hypoglycemic agents as needed.
For this study, researchers evaluated the effectiveness of offering insulin-based therapy as an initial treatment option to newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes patients. They compared rates of compliance, satisfacti
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| Contact: Kristen Holland Shear kristen.hollandshear@utsouthwestern.edu 214-648-3404 UT Southwestern Medical Center Source:Eurekalert |