Free Diabetic Supplies

Type 2 diabetes affects over 250 million people worldwide. Intensive insulin therapy through daily injections is typically started late in the course of the disease. But researchers in China found that if this treatment is undertaken before the body loses the ability to control sugar levels in the blood, patients recover normal levels faster and are less at risk of remission.A team led by Jianping Weng of Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou divided nearly 400 patients aged 25 to 70 with Type 2 diabetes into three groups. Two groups received intensive insulin therapy. The third group was given standard oral diabetic drugs. Treatment was stopped when regular blood glucose control had been restored for two weeks, after which patients regulated sugar levels through diet and exercise alone.

The study found that more patients in the two insulin-intensive groups hit normal levels, and did so faster, in four to six days rather than nine, compared to the control group. Also significant, remission rates were nearly twice as high in the first two groups.

A second study showed that a controlled diet and exercise over six years prevented or delayed diabetes onset by up to an additional 14 years. The two studies were published in the British journal The Lancet.