Monitoring Program Saves Diabetics’ Lives

The lives of tens of thousands of diabetics nationwide could be saved every year if doctors made a strict regimen of insulin and medical monitoring standard treatment, a 14-year research study in the Kansas City area has found.

Over the course of the study, the death rate of patients who received this comprehensive therapy was 22 percent lower than that of patients who got routine care.

Among diabetics who were in relatively good health at the start of the study, the reduction in deaths was even more startling - 45 percent.

And the survival odds with comprehensive therapy improved regardless of age, race or type of diabetes.

The study of 780 patients is being published in the March issue of Diabetes Care, the journal of the American Diabetes Association.