Many Low-Income, Minority Adults With Type 2 Diabetes Not Knowledgeable Of The Condition, Study Finds

Main Category: Diabetes
Article Date: 30 Apr 2009 - 6:00 PDT

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Many low-income minority adults with type 2 diabetes have misconceptions about the disease that could affect its management, according to a study published in the journal Diabetes Care, Reuters Health reports. For the study, researcher Devin Mann of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and colleagues surveyed 151 people who, on average, had diabetes for 13 years and were receiving routine medical care. Fifty-eight percent of respondents were Hispanics and 34% were black. Most of the participants had annual incomes below $30,000.

About one in three of respondents believed that their doctor could cure their condition or that they would not always have the disease, and most were unaware of the hemoglobin A1C test, which is used to gauge long-term blood glucose control, according to the study. Among the respondents, researchers also found that:

• 56% believed that normal blood glucose levels were 200 milligrams per deciliter of blood or less, when in fact normal levels are below 100 mg/dL for fasting blood glucose or below 140 mg/dL after an oral glucose tolerance test;
  
  
• 42% said that glucose levels of 110 mg/dL or less were too low;
  
  
• 54% said they could feel when their blood glucose levels were too high; and
  
  
• 55% of those using insulin were more likely to have misconceptions, as were the 25% whose A1C levels signaled poor blood glucose control.
  

Mann said, "The newly observed misconceptions and related predictors may represent important opportunities for targeting barriers to successful diabetes management" (Reuters Health, 4/28).

An abstract of the study is available online.

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