Diabetes control is skipped for type 2 diabetics during lockdown, while on the contrary it is improved for type 1 diabetics, i.e. for people with insulin-dependent (or juvenile) diabetes, an autoimmune disease that leads to the destruction of the pancreas that produces insulin).
This is indicated by a large review study (meta-analysis) of data relating to a total of 33 studies already published on the subject, conducted by Claudia Eberle of the University of Applied Sciences in Fulda, Germany and presented at the Annual Congress of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD).
The study involved a total of 4,700 diabetic patients, about half of them with juvenile or type 1 diabetes, the others with type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease.
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It emerged that during the lockdown for the latter, the management of the disease worsened, with more difficulty in controlling blood glucose and also body weight, which in several studies considered by the meta-analysis resulted on the increase.
For them, the values of glycated hemoglobin have also increased, explains Eberle, the parameter used to monitor long-term glycemic control. These are signs that suggest that people with type 2 diabetes have suffered from the lockdown and distance from health services (not benefiting from telemedicine); in addition, they probably ate less healthily and exercised less.
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On the contrary, patients with insulin-dependent diabetes seem to have exploited the lockdown to think about their health, with better monitoring of their disease, also testified by the improvement in glycated hemoglobin values. Type 1 diabetics, on average younger, have perhaps benefited most from telemedicine services and also from the use of automatic glycemic control devices during lockdown, concludes the expert.
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