NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -
An Internet-based blood-sugar
monitoring program appears to help people with type 1 diabetes
better manage their condition, researchers report.

Type 1 diabetes, also known as insulin-dependent diabetes,
usually strikes people in their teens and twenties, and
requires regular insulin injections and close monitoring of
blood sugar, or glucose.

For the new study, researchers looked at whether an online
program in “blood glucose awareness training” could help type 1
diabetics better manage the disease.

The program, dubbed BGAThome, is an adaptation of
well-studied program that uses group sessions to teach
diabetics tactics for predicting and preventing blood sugar
ups-and-downs — such as keeping daily diaries on glucose
levels and recording symptoms associated with sugar lows.

The Internet version is designed to allow patients to
improve their diabetes management from the privacy of their own
home, Dr. Daniel Cox, the lead researcher on the study, told
Reuters Health.

He and his colleagues at the University of Virginia Health
Systems in Charlottesville followed 25 middle-aged adults with
type 1 diabetes, half of whom were enrolled in the BGAThome
program, and half of whom were placed a waiting list for the
program.

The researchers found that patients who used the program
became more likely to make wise choices concerning low blood
sugar levels. They were more likely, for example, to eat
fast-acting carbohydrates and choose not to drive when their
sugar levels were very low, the researchers report in the
journal Diabetes Care.

Participants completed the program in 11 weeks on average,
logged on to the program about 30 times, and spent about a
half-hour on each lesson. The more often patients logged on,
the greater their improvements in diabetes management and
knowledge, the researchers found.

Importantly, the researchers note, patients also found the
program easy and enjoyable to use.

Larger studies with more-diverse groups of patients are
needed, according to Cox and his colleagues. But they say the
current findings suggest that the Internet program could offer
an inexpensive way to reach large numbers of people with
diabetes.

SOURCE: Diabetes Care, August 2008.