Intensive Diabetes Control, No Effect on Cognitive Ability in Type 1 Diabetics

Filed in archive Developments , Research , Treatment on May 3, 2007

Though effective in dramatically slowing the onset and progression of diabetes complications, intensive blood glucose control in people with type 1 diabetes can increase the episodes of severe hypoglycemia: abnormally low blood glucose levels that can cause confusion, irrational behavior, convulsions and unconsciousness.

A new study led by Joslin Diabetes Center's researchers revealed good news to type 1 diabetes patients who want tight control of their blood sugar to prevent their condition's complications: heart disease, kidney failure, eye disease and blindness, and nerve damage.

The said study found that multiple episodes of severe hypoglycemia do not lead to long-term loss of cognitive ability.

According to the study's principal investigator, Alan M. Jacobson, M.D., head of Joslin's Behavioral and Mental Health Research Section and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School:

"The EDIC study provides further support for the safety of intensive diabetes therapy and the benefits of maintaining good glycemic control. While acute episodes of hypoglycemia can impair thinking and can even be life-threatening, type 1 diabetes patients do not have to worry that such episodes will impair their long-term abilities to perceive, reason and remember."

However, the researchers warned that further study is needed to determine whether hypoglycemic episodes in young children have any lasting cognitive effects because the youngest participants in this particular study were 13 years old when the study commenced.

Find more details from the press release.