Study: Better self care boosts diabetics’ health

SAN DIEGO – For years, public health officials have urged people to do simple things to manage their diabetes: watch blood sugar levels, eat a healthy diet and exercise.

Their message, it turns out, appears to be working.

Figures released by the government Saturday show that far fewer Americans with diabetes are ending up in the hospital or developing kidney failure – a sign that diabetes care has improved.

“We are at last improving the quality of life for diabetics,” said Alan Cherrington, president of the American Diabetes Association and a professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who was not connected to the study.

However, a separate study raises concern that doctors may be misdiagnosing kids with Type 1 diabetes who need insulin to survive. Many of these children were misclassified as Type 2, the diabetes linked to obesity, possibly because their weight problems are throwing doctors off track.

Both studies were presented at an American Diabetes Association meeting in San Diego.

The good news came from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

From 1994 to 2002, the rate of diabetes-related hospitalizations fell from 55 to 36 per 1,000 diabetics. Similarly, the rate of diabetes patients with kidney failure dropped from 327 to 229 per 100,000 between 1996 and 2002.

Researchers used two sources of information. The kidney failure rates came from a national database of people who had dialysis or transplants in the last decade. The hospitalization rates were based on figures from big hospitals across the country.

Doctors have urged people with diabetes to control their blood sugar and blood pressure.