This is a report of a presentation at AADE 2015 by Dana Brackney PhD, RN, CNS, CDE, BC-ADM entitled “Use of SMBG in T2 DM Self-Management:‘Knowing Where I Am At.’”
Dana Brackney PhD, RN, CNS, CDE, BC-ADM
There still remains a huge controversy on whether Self-Monitored Blood Glucose (SMBG) is effective and worth the cost in diabetes patients who are not insulin using. This presentation was a breath of fresh air as it described purposeful SMGB and efforts to measure positive outcomes. While this is a small and limited study, hopefully this will start to gather more interest in doing studies where SMBG is done in a way that is patient centered and purposeful. There are many patients that learn to “Eat to Your Meter” with great success. It is really too bad that studies of SMBG effectiveness have been so deeply flawed and although they claim to be “intervention” studies, if you don’t use SMBG in a purposeful way then you don’t really have an intervention.
“Eat to Your Meter” is simply the application of the scientific method to the problem of T2 diabetes control. As long as the patient acts on the results of their tests it cannot help but lower A1C. It is hard to understand why someone with scientific training would not immediately grasp it’s power.
I learned about it from @jenny 's website. This plus Bernstein’s book quickly gave me an effective plan of action after my diagnosis.
Thanks for posting this Brian, I had no idea this could even be controversial. And thanks to Dr. Brackney for designing a study that actually provides useful information as opposed to the earlier flawed studies.
It’s depressing to think about how many life and death decisions are based on studies so poorly designed that they are not worth the paper they are printed on.
The studies I’ve seen cited were ones where subjects were instructed to test fasting sugars only. Not surprisingly, that made no difference in their outcomes. Unfortunately, that is still how local doctors in my region instruct patients to test.
It took me a long time to realize that many of the doctors I see don’t know that dietary carbs are the main thing raising blood sugar. Such a simple fact, but I have actually heard a doc say that it was eating fat that raised blood sugar, not carbs.
