Self monitoring of blood glucose in type 2 diabetes

doi:10.1136/bmj.39276.549109.47

BMJ 2007;335:105-106 (21 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.39276.549109.47

Editorials

Self monitoring of blood glucose in type 2 diabetes

Clinicians should stop patients doing this if it has no benefit

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Self monitoring of blood glucose costs the NHS more than £100m( ${euro}$ 150m; $200m) each year and the cost is rising.¹ For many peoplewith insulin treated diabetes and their families, blood glucoseself monitoring is an essential tool, enabling them to confirmhypoglycaemia or high glucose concentrations and to take correctiveaction. Yet large numbers of patients diligently record theresults and then do nothing with them.

In this week's BMJ Farmer and colleagues report the resultsof a primary care trial in patients with well controlled type2 diabetes who were not taking insulin. They found no evidenceof an effect of blood glucose self monitoring on glycaemic control,with and without structured education, compared with usual care.²This study confirms that the contribution of self monitoringis not clear in type 2 diabetes, particularly for those treatedwith diet alone or oral agents other than sulphonylureas. Furthermore,. . . [Full text of this article]

Simon R Heller, professor of clinical diabetes

School of Medicine and Biosciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2RX

s.heller@sheffield.ac.uk

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This article has been cited by other articles:

Bhattacharyya, O. K. MD PhD, Shah, B. R. MD PhD, Booth, G. L. MD MSc (2008). Management of cardiovascular disease in patients with diabetes: the 2008 Canadian Diabetes Association guidelines. CMAJ 179: 920-926 [Full text]
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Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Cardiovascular risk outweighs glucose self-monitoring: Andrew M Solomon
bmj.com, 23 Jul 2007 [Full text]
The value of blood glucose self monitoring in type 2 diabetes is limited: Gerard Keele
bmj.com, 31 Jul 2007 [Full text]
Monitoring in type 2 diabetes can have other implications: Suhayr T Xavier, et al.
bmj.com, 2 Aug 2007 [Full text]