US government researchers have reported the first broad national picture of progress against some of the most devastating complications of diabetes, finding that rates of heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure and amputations fell sharply over the past two decades, reports the [s]Boston Globe[/s] report. The biggest declines were in the rates of heart attacks and deaths from high blood sugar, which dropped by more than 60% from 1990 to 2010. ‘This is the first really credible, reliable data that demonstrates that all of the efforts at reducing risk have paid off,’ said Dr David Nathan, director of the Diabetes Centre at [b]Massachusetts General Hospital[/b], who was not involved in the study. ‘Given that diabetes is the chronic epidemic of this millennium, this is a very important finding.’ Researchers from the [b]Centres for Disease Control and Prevention[/b], who wrote the study, estimate that diabetes and its complications account for about $176 billion in medical costs every year. The study was published in [s]The New England Journal of Medicine[/s].
New light has been shed on diabetes by researchers from the [b]University of Sheffield[/b] and [b]Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust[/b], who discovered diabetic nerve damage causes more harm in the brain than previously thought. [s]Medical Xpress[/s] reports that the new findings published in [s]Diabetes Care[/s] reveal the extent of damage patients suffering with the disease can endure in areas of the brain called 'grey matter' – a key component of the central nervous system which is involved in touch and pain sensory perception. The report says the breakthrough could pave the way for better assessment and monitoring of the disease, which affects around a third of people with diabetes.
[link url=http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/04/16/type-diabetes-complications-show-sharp-decline-report-finds/NOnlbhmIbQHuyWHnRJfUbN/story.html]Full Boston Globe report[/link]
[link url=http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1310799]NEJM study preview[/link]
[link url=http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-04-impact-diabetes-brain.html]Full Medical Xpress report[/link]
[link url=http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/early/2014/03/13/dc13-2610.abstract?sid=e22c8ab3-4068-434b-8c5e-41221827337f]Diabetes Care abstract[/link]