Abstracts by key term: Blood sugar self-monitoring
Diabetes mellitus has become a widespread disease in Germany. There are at least 7 million people with diagnosed diabetes mellitus in Germany and, taking into account the undiagnosed cases and the increasing prevalence of the disease worldwide, especially among younger people, the German health system will face major challenges, including economic ones. Under certain conditions, self-monitoring of blood sugar can be a very useful and cost-effective therapeutic element in the treatment of the disease. Although this benefit in insulin-dependent diabetics is largely undisputed, there is still no consensus in Germany about the benefit in non-insulin-dependent type 2 diabetics. However, what is often overlooked in the benefit assessment is that self-measurement of blood glucose is a diagnostic procedure which – unlike medicines – cannot have an intrinsic effect. Applying drug evaluation methods to a diagnostic procedure can subsequently lead to misleading results. If blood glucose measurement is used correctly by patients and appropriate assessment methods are used, self-assessment of blood glucose in type 2 patients even proves to be cost-saving for health insurance companies.