Managing Diabetes Is a Team Effort

Diabetes is an affliction of modern life. Americans have abundant and relatively inexpensive food. We have a lack of interest and/or time for exercise. We are predisposed toward a high incidence of the disease and its devastating consequences.

Diabetes is a disorder of the metabolism. Its signature-high blood sugar-is the result of the body not producing enough insulin or the cells not properly using the insulin that is produced. It is nasty business: Diabetes can deprive people of their sight, their limbs, their lives.

There are three types: Type 1, commonly called juvenile diabetes because it presents early in life, requires insulin injections because the body just doesn’t make enough. Type 2, commonly called adult-onset diabetes, results from resistance to insulin-the body doesn’t use the hormone properly. Gestational diabetes occurs among woman without a history of diabetes but whose pregnancies raise their blood sugar; it can predispose them toward Type 2 diabetes.

Although genes play a role, adult-onset diabetes often results from lifestyle choices. As such, it’s the type that responds best to both medical and personal interventions. You’ve probably heard claims that many Type 2 diabetics who clean up their dietary act and get regular exercise can control, if not beat, this dread disease.

Maybe. But doctors at the American board of Internal Medicine analyzed which interventions had the biggest effect on diabetes patients, and they concluded that the best practice for diabetic patients involves significant physician involvement.

By comparing interventions-those that are managed by physicians (prescribing medicine for high blood pressure, for example) and those that are controlled by patients (eating a proper diet), they found that if the entire population of all U.S. patients diagnosed with diabetes met aggressive targets for lowering blood pressure, LDL cholesterol and blood glucose levels-all goals that must be monitored by doctors-they would have a 16 percent increase in quality-adjusted life-years and a nearly 23 percent reduction in 15-year mortality.

“Managing diabetes and preventing its associated morbidities require active physician-patient partnerships,” they concluded.

Diabetics who want to lead normal lives must take responsibility for understanding their disease and managing it to the best of their ability. But the team-based approach to treating diabetes clearly seems superior.

Another study, as reported on MedPage Today, supports this view. As stated in the Annals of Family Medicine, these researchers concluded that the involvement of nurse care managers working with patients and primary care physicians was associated with improved control of not only diabetes, but also depression and heart disease.

Even the most motivated diabetic can mismanage his or her medications, can struggle with adhering to rigid regimens and is subject to associated disorders-nearly 2 in 10 diabetes patients suffer from depression. The study examined a program called TEAMcare, a collaboration among a nurse care manager, physicians and patients that increased initiation of various types of medication, rates of treatment adjustment and self-monitoring by patients,

“Results of this trial suggest that improving specific patient and clinician behaviors (close monitoring of disease control parameters and timely treatment adjustments to achieve individualized goals) can improve disease control and quality of life among patients with multiple conditions and complex healthcare needs,” the researchers wrote.

As MedPage noted, it’s difficult to exercise good disease control for patients with multiple chronic diseases because they often have multiple doctors, complex treatment regimens and a higher risk of harmful drug interactions. Depression exacerbates these challenges.

So if you or someone close to you has diabetes, read about standards of medical practice for diabetes here on our site. Make sure all of your care providers are aware of what you’re doing apart from their particular focus. Are your primary care doctor and endocrinologist doctors aware of your nutrition and exercise habits? Do your doctors and pharmacists have current records of all the medications you’re taking and are they aware if you’re struggling to adhere to their respective prescriptions? Are they aware if your depression is sapping the energy you need to exercise?

Diabetes is complicated. It takes a village to treat it.