Only about 30% of older Americans have control over their diabetes, the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has found.
Adults over 65 with diabetes took a blood test in order to examine cholesterol and glucose levels, and also had their blood pressure measured for the study, said Christina Parrinello, Ph.D.,a study co-author and instructor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Of the 1,600 older adults examined, only about one-third of them with diabetes met the targets, established by the American Diabetes Association, for all three factors.
“It may not be beneficial to have such low targets, especially in glucose control, and I think individualized guidelines may be more beneficial,” Parrinello told McKnight’s.
The researchers also noticed extreme racial and gender disparities in the data. Particularly, African American women were much less likely to have control over their diabetes than men or other races. Parrinello believes this can be attributed to the difference in access to healthcare and the quality of care among these groups.
“In general, data tends to show frequent racial disparities, but the gender part surprised me,” she said
From the September 01, 2015 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
