Rationale For Intensive or Flexible Treatment
Long-term studies like the UK Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS) and the Diabetes control and complications trial (DCCT) showed that intensive insulinotherapy achieved blood glucose levels closer to non-diabetic people and that this was associated with reduced frequency and severity of blood vessel damage. Damage to large and small blood vessels (macro- and microvascular disease) is central to the development of complications of diabetes mellitus.
This evidence convinced most physicians who specialize in diabetes care that an important goal of treatment is to make the biochemical profile of the diabetic patient (blood lipids, HbA1c, etc.) as close to the values of non-diabetic people as possible. This is especially true for young patients with many decades of life ahead.
Read more about this topic: Intensive Insulinotherapy
Famous quotes containing the words intensive, flexible and/or treatment:
“We have to transpose ourselves into this impressionability of mind, into this sensitivity to tears and spiritual repentance, into this susceptibility, before we can judge how colorful and intensive life was then.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“It is safest to be moderately base—to be flexible in shame, and to be always ready for what is generous, good and just, when anything is to be gained by virtue.”
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845)
“Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)