Treatment of type 1 Diabetes: insulin pumps, have a positive impact on quality of life
According to health experts, more and more children suffer from type 1 Diabetes. Many of the young patients are treated with an insulin pump. This brings to an injection therapy with a Pen or syringe has clear advantages. According to experts, the treatment has a positive effect on the blood sugar values and the quality of life of those Affected.
About seven and a half of the diabetics in Germany
According to experts, about 7.6 million Germans diabetic. Over 90 percent of those Affected have type 2 Diabetes. The disease can often be also in a natural way under control. It is important to eat a healthy diet, move regularly and any excess weight. In patients with type 1 Diabetes, insulin therapy is always necessary. A insulin use in this country, more than half of all young people with type 1 Diabetes pump. This comfortable, safe and successful therapy, according to a number of studies, particularly in children advantages compared to injection therapy with a Pen or syringe.
Positive Therapy Effects
The German Diabetes society (DDG) refers, in a communication to a high-ranking publication in the journal “JAMA”, which underlines the positive effects of therapy.
In addition, another recently published study shows that the quality of life of those Affected increases by treatment with insulin pumps.
This is according to the DDG, in particular, for children with type 1 Diabetes.
Life-threatening complications prevent
So-called CSII systems (“continuous subcutaneous insulin infussion”) such as the insulin pump are widely used in Germany more and more.
Just one percent of the patients used in 1995 with type 1 Diabetes, insulin pumps, it is now about half of the Affected under 20 years of age and in children under six years of age and over 90 per cent.
The device is a subcutaneously administered needle regularly brought Insulin into the body.
“According to the current international knowledge of insulin pumps in diabetology in patients with widely fluctuating blood glucose values, currently, the safest method is to keep long-term blood sugar level HbA1c is low, as well as hypoglycemia or an acute lack of Insulin (ketoacidosis) – to prevent a life-threatening complication,” says DDG President, Professor Dr. med. Dirk Müller-Wieland.
Patients with insulin pump have less severe hypoglycemia
The results of a recent publication in the “Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA),” show that patients benefit from an insulin pump.
The study authors examined over five years, with over 30,500 patients with type 1 Diabetes the value of insulin pump therapy by the respective results of therapy of insulin pumps straps with the classic insulin injection compared.
They based their information from the Diabetes-patient-history documentation (DPV) of over 400 organisations from Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, and Switzerland participate.
This System covers approximately 80 percent of all patients with type 1 Diabetes from these countries.
“The results are clear: patients with insulin pump have less severe hypoglycemia and less likely to be diabetic ketoacidosis and had better overall glucose values than patients receiving a conventional injection therapy,” DDG-Executive Board member Professor Dr. med. Andreas New.
Effective psychosocial effects in children with Diabetes
On the positive metabolic effect in addition to the use of insulin pumps is also a favorable psychosocial effect in children with Diabetes and their parents.
This shows a study by researchers of the German Working Group for Pediatric Pump Therapy (agip), which was published in the journal “Pediatric Diabetes”.
“The quality of life of those Affected is increased dramatically, since parents are relieved with the regular blood sugar control and Insulin supply and significantly more security in their daily lives,” explains New, the top doctor in the Diabetes clinic in the clinic for child and youth medicine at the University hospital in Tübingen.
“Because of the blood sugar levels in children is particularly exposed to frequent fluctuations. Irregular movement and food intake as well as growth spurts of the young patients have a significant impact on the sugar metabolism. This often requires faster insulin adjustments, to severe side effects.“
Users must be well trained
Also in the “S3 guideline for the treatment of type 1 Diabetes,” the experts recommend, in particular, in the case of frequent hypoglycemia, very fluctuating blood sugar levels and inadequate glycemic control therapy with insulin pump.
Professor Dr. med. Thomas Haak, chief physician of the Diabetes clinic at the Diabetes centre Mergentheim, Germany, and coordinator of the S3-guideline, added: “an Important prerequisite, an insulin pump therapy to successfully implement, is that the Patient and the parents are proficient in the intensified insulin therapy – so well trained.”
In addition, the physician should have extensive experience with this therapy and the patient with a comprehensive training offer. (ad)