Which is More Effective for Type 2 Diabetes: Insulin Pumps or Insulin Injection

For individuals with type 2 diabetes, handling the problem can include multiple day-to-day injections of insulin. But a new research presented in The Lancet indicates that insulin pumps may be more successful for managing blood sugar levels.

But the team engaged in this latest research, lead by Prof. Yves Reznik, states theirs is the biggest study to date that examines the effectiveness of insulin pumps for type 2 diabetes – the kind that reports for more than of all diabetes situations.

Type 2 diabetes is a disorder whereby the body is incapable to generate or use the hormone insulin successfully, causing in high blood sugar levels. Eventually, high blood sugar levels can lead to nerve damage, eye, kidney, stroke  or heart diseases.

In some conditions, the problem can be handled via diet or blood sugar-lowering drugs, like as metformin. But in a lot of cases, a individual may need multiple everyday doses of insulin provided by injection into the abdomen, upper arms, thighs or buttocks.

However, Prof. Reznik and co-workers notice that about a third of sufferers that handle their situation with insulin injections have issues achieving the maximum level of blood sugar.

With this in thoughts, the team made the decision to evaluate the efficiency of insulin injections towards insulin pumps – little portable, automated devices that provide ongoing doses of insulin via a catheter places below the skin.

Results ‘recommend insulin pumps are a useful treatment choice for type 2 diabetes’

For their research, the scientists registered 495 adults’ ages 30-75 years with type 2 diabetes who had inadequate control of their blood sugar levels. Individuals were supervised as they obtained enhanced multiple day-to-day injections of insulin.

After 2 months, the team recognized 330 individuals whose glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels – an indication of a individual’s blood sugar levels over the previous 2-3 months – were over the targeted range of 8% or less. Of these, 165 were randomly allocated to receive therapy with insulin pumps, while 160 ongoing with multiple daily insulin injections.

After 6 months of therapy, the scientists identified that the blood sugar levels of individuals who used insulin pumps were on average 0.7% less than those of individuals who used multiple insulin injections. In addition, 54% of individuals who used insulin pumps arrived at the HbA1c target range of 7% or less, in comparison with only 27% of individuals who applied insulin injections. Those who applied insulin pumps also spent 3 hours less a day experiencing hyperglycemia – a condition of high blood sugar levels.

The scientists observe that the time spent in hypoglycemia – incredibly low blood sugar levels – was identical between each group, and at the end of the research, sufferers who used insulin pumps needed a 20% lower day-to-day insulin dose than all those who used multiple injections. No distinction in weight was noticed among the two groups.

 Leaving comments on the team’s results, Prof. Reznik states that:

“Pumps boost effective insulin absorption and maximize insulin sensitivity thanks to the ongoing daily subcutaneous insulin delivery.

Our results open up a useful new therapy choice for those people failing on present injection regimens and may also offer enhanced convenience, decreasing the burden of dose monitoring and scheduling, and reducing insulin injection omissions.”

In an article connected to the study, Dr. Pratik Choudhary states that these results offer “compelling evidence” for the efficiency of insulin pumps to deal with type 2 diabetes sufferers who are incapable to control blood sugar with insulin injections.

Clinical Research Society recently reported on a study presented in JAMA Internal Medicine, which recommended that Insulin Treatment May do More Damage than Good for Diabetes Patients Who are Above 50 Age.