A major study suggests that type 1 diabetics are more likely to have bone fractures when blood sugar levels are so high.
The researchers examined data from more than 47,000 diabetics, including 3329 patients with type 1 diabetes, the least common type of diabetes, and usually occurs in childhood or early adolescence when the pancreas fails to secrete insulin. The other participants in the study were people with type 2 diabetes linked to obesity and aging and the incidence of infection when the body can not use or excrete enough insulin to convert blood sugar into energy.
The risk of bone fracture was higher in type 1 patients when their mean blood sugar levels were significantly higher, the study found.
"It is important for people with type 1 diabetes to have a good control of blood sugar levels for all sorts of reasons, and it is important to avoid fractures," said researcher Francesque Formiga of the University of Barcelona.
"People with high levels of sugar should realize that this is detrimental to their overall health and bone and may increase the risk of fractures, so they have to change treatment based on the doctor's recommendations," he said.
"Diabetes has long been associated with an increased risk of fractures, but research results have varied about the role of high levels of sugar in the blood," wrote Christian Meyer of the Basel University Hospital in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
Some complications of diabetes can increase the risk of falls and fractures, including cognitive impairment and nerve damage, which limits the sensation of the foot as well as retinal impairment, making it difficult for the patient to see any obstacles in his way and may cause it to fall.
The study showed that patients with type 1 diabetes with complications such as retinopathy were 29 percent more likely to have fractures than those who did not.
"The risk of falls in people who can not cope with any change in body posture, such as road stumbling or ankle sprain, is about 400 parts per second," said James Richardson, a professor of physiotherapy at Michigan School of Medicine who did not take part in the study.