Abstracts by key term: diabetes
40 years ago, the WHO declared that at least 50 percent of diabetes cases worldwide could be prevented and - as can be read in the Diabetes Health Report 2013 (1, p. 23) - called for actions to prevent this disease. However, the call received little attention back then - much like it does today. Over these many years, the German healthcare system has invested billions to care for people with this disease. According to the CODE-2 study (2), the costs caused by patients with type 2 diabetes in Germany amounted to around 15.7 million euros in 1998 - which has since extrapolated to many hundreds of billions of euros. But: Despite this immense investment, why are there still deficits in diabetic care as one of the most cost-intensive chronic diseases? It is reasonable to assume that the fundamental problem of almost all “non-communicable diseases” - enabling the people affected to self-manage and motivating lifestyle changes - cannot be overcome with the current acute care approach alone.
24.01.2013
Diabetic foot syndrome is a secondary disease of diabetes mellitus and often leads to non-traumatic amputations. These are associated with high medical costs, loss of quality of life and high mortality (Heller et al. 2004). Diabetic foot syndrome occurs with a prevalence of 6.5% among type 2 diabetes patients (Lauterbach et al. 2010). Endogenous risk factors such as B. diabetic polyneuropathy or peripheral arterial disease (PAD) have a prevalence of 30% and 25%, respectively (Lauterbach et al. 2010). Prevention of diabetic foot syndrome is therefore very important. In addition to the endogenous risk factors mentioned, exogenous factors such as: For example, inadequate footwear or poor foot care play a crucial role (Uccioli et al. 1995; Chantelau/Haage 1994; Brent et al. 2006). According to the International Consensus on the Diabetic Foot (1999), the prevalence of diabetic foot syndrome could be reduced through, among other things, regular inspections of the feet and footwear, training of patients and family members and the wearing of suitable footwear. An important and effective intervention measure is to train and instruct patients to self-inspect their feet.
24.02.2012
The complexity of the metabolic disease diabetes mellitus type 2 affects many organs in the body. Accordingly, a positive correlation is often found between the severity of diabetes and the occurrence of other diseases such as neuropathy, peripheral arterial disease (PAOD) and coronary artery disease (CHD) (Bauer T, 2011). CHD means that the coronary arteries that supply the heart muscle with oxygen are narrowed. This constriction is caused by arteriosclerosis, which in turn can arise from hypertension, hyperlipidemia and increased blood sugar levels in diabetes mellitus. In particular, the increased blood sugar damages the vessels and leads to micro- and macroangiopathies. As a result, diabetics are much more likely to develop CHD than non-diabetics (Kannel W, 1979). The risk of coronary heart disease is already increased before the diabetes diagnosis, as the pre-diabetes phase with elevated blood sugar levels exists for a long time before the confirmed diabetes diagnosis (Hu FB, 2002)