There are 3.7million people diagnosed with diabetes in the UK and an estimated 850,000 people who have the condition but do not know it. Diabetes can damage a person's blood vessels and nerves, especially if their blood sugar is poorly controlled. Poor circulation and nerve damage in the feet makes people vulnerable to unnoticed cuts or other injuries and progress into poorly healing ulcers, or sores. In severe cases, this can lead to foot or leg amputation.
In a study of 17,830 patients with diabetes -- 3,095 diagnosed with foot ulceration and 14,735 without -- researchers from St George's, University of London investigated how diabetic foot ulcers affected a person's risk of dying earlier. They found that those with a history of foot ulceration had a higher death rate than those without. There were an extra 58 deaths per 1,000 people each year with diabetic foot ulcers.
3 comments:
"Diabetes can damage a person's blood vessels and nerves, especially if their blood sugar is poorly controlled."
so do we know if the higher risk of death etc is due to foot ulcers? or is it that the foot ulcers are a symptom of poor control, leading to deaths?
The article seems to imply that the foot ulcers are the problem, rather than the evidence of poor blood sugar control which leads to the ulcers. Which is a very different way of looking at it.
Agree Claire.
Poor diabetes control and elevated BG numbers effects every tissue in the body, none of it good.
Eddie
It has to be about good control of bg numbers, the lower the number the less risk of complications. It is a shame, almost criminal, that there are so many diabetics who still do not recognise this fact.
Grace
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