In Diabetes Control, Older African-Americans and Latinos Lag Behind Whites

Filed in archive Challenges , Information , Research on September 26, 2007

Even with the help of medications and despite the decades of advances in diabetes care, when it comes to putting the blood sugar under control, middle-aged and older adults African-Americans and Latinos are more likely to fail compared to their white counterparts.




Such were the findings of a new nationally representative study conducted by a team from the University of Michigan and the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.

Most notably, two factors were found to account for a sizable portion of the racial and ethnic difference in glucose control: how well patients persist in taking their diabetes medicines regularly, and how they respond emotionally to having diabetes.

Fortunately, these factors are likely to change in response to specific outreach efforts - including some now underway by the U-M researchers. The study also hints that more factors are at work.

The said findings - published in the Sept. 24 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine - have once again documented the persistent strong racial and ethnic disparities in diabetes control present for decades -thereby putting these ethnic groups (African-Americans and Latinos) at a much higher risk of blindness, heart attack, kidney failure, foot amputation and other long-term diabetes complications.

Find more details from the University of Michigan Health System.