Sep 30, 2008 12:34 pm US/Eastern
HealthWatch: Diabetes & Blood Sugar Control
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
The best way for diabetics to avoid dangerous complications is to strictly control their blood sugar. Doctors have found the best way to do that is with a new, tiny electronic device.
Brothers Steve and Aaron Kowalski both have type-1 diabetes. Aaron, research director for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, knows that controlling their blood sugar can keep them healthy. "People will be much less likely to go blind, to have kidney failure, to have amputations, and that is just a very powerful result," he said.
Steve's problem is something many diabetics also have, their blood sugar can go too low when insulin and activity level overwhelm food intake, which can be life threatening. "I really count myself to be lucky to be alive at this point. I was found unconscious somewhere on the side of the road somewhere about 10 at one point," he said.
Diabetics used to have to prick their fingers up to a dozen times a day in some cases to check their blood sugar and adjust their insulin intake. This method is uncomfortable and sometimes not accurate enough.
Instead both Steve and Aaron use a tiny device called a continuous glucose monitor, or CGM, that checks their blood sugar as often as every five minutes. Better yet, it sends the readings to a remote control that tracks levels, trends and just as importantly for Steve, tells him when his sugar's too low.
"You will hear an alarm, it's quite loud. My wife will hear it from across the house and ask, 'Are you ok'?" he said.
And now a landmark study in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that diabetics who used a continuous glucose monitor achieved much better blood sugar control as measured by a marker called hemoglobin A1C.
"If you lower the hemoglobin A1C, you have a much reduced risk of diabetic complications. So what we know is if you lower the A1C by ten percent you have a 40% less chance of getting diabetic retinopathy, which is the disease in your eyes that cause blindness," Dr. Kowalski said.
This device, Steve, says, affords "Peace of mind, not only for myself but for my wife, for my parents, for my family."
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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