If you have type 2 diabetes, a personal care plan may be more beneficial to your wellbeing than routine, doctor-led care. This is according to a new study which found that people who had personal care had less chance of having a heart attack or of getting other types of health problems from their diabetes.
With diabetes, your wellness depends on managing the complex illness. Otherwise, you can increase your risk of premature death, heart attacks, strokes, or damage to the your, kidneys, or nerves. According to the guidelines of both European and American medical groups, you need to, in partnership with your doctor, set the goals for treatment that are most important to you, such as improving your blood sugar control, losing weight, reducing your chance of health problems, or avoiding having to take certain kinds of treatments that might affect your daily life.
The researchers investigated whether this kind of approach to treatment is more beneficial than routine, doctor-led care by dividing 1,381 recently diagnosed type 2 diabetics in Denmark into two groups. For six years, the first group met with their doctor every three months to set individual treatment goals and decide on which kinds of treatments would suit them best. The doctors of the second group were free to choose any treatment and change it over time. The researchers assessed which type of care worked best in the long run by checking the patients’ records for 19 years.
The study results revealed that people who had personal care had less chance of having a heart attack or of getting other types of health problems from their diabetes. 2.7% of those in the first group had a heart attack, compared with around 3.4% who had routine care. When it came to health problems related to their diabetes, the rates for groups one and two were roughly 7% and 8.2% respectively.
Interestingly, the routine care group had lower levels of blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol, which are signs of good diabetes control and good general health. Yet, this leveled off as time went on and so the results of the study suggest that, if you have been told you have type 2 diabetes, it is worth discussing with your doctor the things you want to get out of treatment and what’s most important to you.