The ideal blood sugar level is 4 to 5 mmol / liter, the level of 5.6 mmol / liter – 7 mmol / l blood is considered to be slightly increased. When the level is higher than 7 mmol / liter of blood, diabetes is diagnosed. This happens when the pancreas makes little insulin, produces no insulin or produces insulin but does not respond to it.
–
Insulin responses, diet and physical activity need to be managed to properly control diabetes. Insulin and physical activity lower blood glucose levels, while food and anti-regulatory hormones increase it. So there must always be a balance between all these things. When this does not happen, blood glucose fluctuates from normal, resulting in one of the acute complications of diabetes.
–
That’s why it’s so important to know your blood glucose levels throughout the day, especially at the time of insulin treatment. “If the treatment requires the administration of multiple injections per day, then patients should measure their blood glucose approximately 4 times a day, in some cases even more often,” points out the diabetologist Jan Šoupal from III. internal clinics of the General University Hospital in Prague and the 1st Faculty of Medicine of Charles University in Prague.
–
Until now, frequent blood glucose measurements have been very inconvenient for most patients, as patients always needed a drop of their blood to measure them, which was then evaluated by a glucometer.
–
Today, glucose levels can be measured automatically using an implanted sensor located on the back of the arm that does not change until six months later. “The sensor constantly monitors the blood sugar level and, with the help of a mobile phone or an alarm, gives the person concerned a chance to react to a possible danger in time,” explains David Feltl, director of the General University Hospital in Prague (VFN).
–
At the same time, the data is automatically stored in a secure application to which the doctor has access. Thanks to this, the patient does not have to go to the doctor so often, everything can be solved by phone.
–
All data is transmitted to the mobile application.
“In addition, the sensors can be used successfully in situations where the meters normally fail, even when the patient measures his blood glucose many times a day. Even frequent measurements using glucometers cannot sufficiently capture the trend of the future development of glycemia, in addition, a number of decreases and increases in glycemia occur unnoticed between individual measurements, “points out the diabetologist Šoupal.
–
Clinical data and data from real measurements point to specific benefits that the use of sensors brings – from improving glucose control, maintaining glucose levels in the required values, through improving quality of life, reducing the number of hospitalizations related to diabetes complications to demonstrable reduction in health care costs. .
—
