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Elderly diabetics at risk from tech confusion

By Ethan Ennals

OLDER diabetics struggle to use high-tech blood sugar trackers the NHS is rolling out to revolutionise their care, a study claims.

Last year 400,000 Britons with the disease were offered the devices, called continuous glucose monitors, which track blood sugar levels via a sensor in the arm.

The data is beamed to an app on the patient’s phone which can send them alerts if their blood sugar is too low or high. The technology does away with finger-prick blood tests, which diabetics have had to endure several times a day.

But researchers in the US have found that the digital devices can be a stumbling block for people over 65. During the study, threequarters of participants allowed blood sugars to drop to seriously low levels without noticing.

Some 4.9 million Britons have diabetes, 90 per cent of them with the form known as type 2, which is typically triggered by excess body fat. The other main form of diabetes, called type 1, is genetic.

In both cases, patients lack sufficient levels of insulin, a hormone that helps blood sugar from food to enter the body’s cells so it can be used for energy. Uncontrolled blood sugar levels can lead to long-term complications,

Health

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2023-01-29T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-01-29T08:00:00.0000000Z

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