HealthDay Reporter
HOMES, March 23, 2021 (HealthDay News) – Blood sugar levels in adolescents with type 1 diabetes improved during Britain’s first national outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic disease, researchers say.
“Children and families found it easier to manage this disease when they were forced to stay at home. This helps us to understand the pressures on patients and families as they try to living a normal busy life with activities outside the home, “said researcher Dr. Neil Lawrence, of the Sheffield Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in Sheffield, England.
The research team compared how well 180 children and teenagers in two UK communities were controlling their type 1 diabetes in the previous 12 weeks and the 12 weeks after the lockout out March 23, 2020. The researchers found a significant improvement in blood sugar levels after the start of the lockout, when children were home.
Adolescent long-term average blood sugar levels fell (HbA1C), and blood sugar readings were less variable and more frequent in the range researchers were asked to achieve (3.9 to 10 mmol / L).
follow up
The study was unveiled almost Monday at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society.
“The findings highlight the difficulties faced by patients and families in managing type 1 diabetes around school pressures, food away from home, social life and peer pressure,” Lawrence said in the press release of a meeting.
“We need to give them extra support in school and when they go out socially so that they can’t develop unfortunate problems later in life,” he said.
Children with this disease need parents, teachers and other caregivers to communicate well and work as a team to prevent related long-term health problems caused by poor blood glucose control, Lawrence stressed air.
“This gives us important insights into where advice, education and support should be directed,” he said. Lawrence said the ongoing use of remote video and telephone consultations can benefit both families. and for clinicians.
Results presented at meetings are usually viewed as a starting point for publication in a peer-reviewed medical journal.
Find out more
follow up
The American Diabetes Association has more on type 1 diabetes.
SOURCE: Endocrine Society, press release, 20 March 2021