Adapting for ADAPT: is your diabetes treatment plan working for you?

Quite a few factors can affect our satisfaction in life. Perhaps this is your job, your relationships, or your progress with a 5000-piece jigsaw puzzle. For those living with type 1 diabetes, perhaps your diabetes treatment plan plays a significant part in your general feelings of satisfaction. It’s always a good idea to stop every now and then to consider whether your diabetes treatment plan is working for you. Does it fit in with your lifestyle? Does it help to put your mind at ease around experiencing a hypoglycaemic episode? Is there a way to reduce the number of daily finger sticks?

Fear of hypoglycaemia (FoH) and living with type 1 diabetes

FoH is known to be a major consideration when living with type 1 diabetes. Experiencing FoH can cause people living with type 1 diabetes to alter their behaviours in an attempt to avoid a hypo. Overall, FoH has been associated with a lower quality of life and increased challenges in optimal diabetes management.¹

Research also tells us that the amount of time that diabetes management can take up in the day is not inconsequential. It can contribute to greater dissatisfaction of an individual’s diabetes treatment plan as well as lower quality of life.²

The fear of finger sticks

Historically, people living with type 1 diabetes have monitored their blood glucose (BG) levels by drawing blood with finger pricking. However, finger pricking can be inconvenient, painful (or at least uncomfortable) and requires you to remember to perform it regularly.

Guardian™ 4 sensor has the potential to reduce the number of finger sticks by up to 80%.³ This means you get to use your fingertips for something else! Play the piano, run your fingers over soft cashmere, and use all the time you’ve saved with CGM and insulin pumps towards something you enjoy.

How can you increase satisfaction with your diabetes treatment plan?

If you think about the aspects of your current (or previous, less satisfactory) treatment plan(s), which parts did you find the most challenging? Perhaps you:

• Are often challenged by FoH, whether for yourself or a loved one.
• Dislike the amount of time and effort it takes to constantly keep an eye on your blood glucose (BG) levels.
• Aren’t too keen on the bruised fingertips that come with frequent finger sticks.

Realistically, there is no magical device that could solve all your diabetes management woes (at least not yet!). However, using an insulin pump could very well be the answer to resolving a number of your main challenges.

Using the MiniMed™ 780G system in diabetes management

Although the main outcome of the ADAPT study⁴ was to watch how HbA1c improved on the pump, a secondary measure was time in range (the amount of time you spend within your target glucose level) as well as time below range (hypoglycaemia) and above range (hyperglycaemia). The study found:

• A greater TIR for those using the MiniMed™ 780G system compared to those on MDI.
• A significant improvement in diabetes treatment satisfaction when moving from MDI to the MiniMed™ 780G system.
•  A decrease in FoH in MiniMed™ 780G system users.

MiniMed™ 780G system has options to customise alarms based on your needs and lifestyle. For those who are constantly worried about their glucose levels, the system can send warnings when your glucose drop or rise out of range (yes, even overnight!). This alert can even be transmitted to someone else (such as a parent) via the CareLink™ Connect app, so that everyone can sleep more easily at night.

Making diabetes management easier with enhanced technologies

Living with type 1 diabetes puts enough on your proverbial plate already. Anything that can make your day-to-day diabetes management a little easier is definitely worthwhile!

Depending on your infusion set, you may only need to change it once every 7 days https://www.medtronic-diabetes.com/en-ZA/insulin-pump-therapy/infusion-sets. By changing the infusion set less often, plastic waste is reduced by half which is equivalent to up to 1.9 kg a year⁵. The infrequent need to change the infusion set reduces the risk of local inflammation resulting in a more pleasant and comfortable experience. Another important benefit is aggregation of insulin is minimised, leading to better insulin absorption levels over a longer period of time⁶.

Final thoughts

A lot of things can affect your satisfaction in life, whether you live with type 1 diabetes or not. As noted in the ADAPT study, if you are living with type 1 diabetes, multiple daily injections and fearing a hypo for you or a loved one don’t need to be one of them, whether during the day or night. With automated insulin delivery systems and CGM helping to take care of your glucose levels, that’s definitely something to be satisfied about. Even if you’re particularly tech-unsavvy, consider talking to your diabetes healthcare team about how CGM and insulin pumps can save your fingers (and your time!).

References

1. Liu J, Bispham J, Fan L, et al. Factors associated with fear of hypoglycaemia among the T1D Exchange Glu population in a cross-sectional online survey. BMJ Open. 2020;10:e038462.
2. Kent DA, Quinn L. Factors That Affect Quality of Life in Young Adults With Type 1 Diabetes. The Diabetes Educator. 2018;44(6):501-509.
3. Medtronic data on file: MiniMed™780G data uploaded voluntarily by 25,396 users in EMEA to CareLink™Personal, from 27 August 2020 to 12 January 2022. Glucose data of the first two weeks of use of G4S from 1.335 users that transitioned from GS3 to G4S, in the last two weeks of use.
4. Choudhary P et al. Advanced hybrid closed loop therapy versus conventional treatment in adults with type 1 diabetes (ADAPT): a randomised controlled study. Lancet Diab Endocrinol. 2022.
5. Fusselman H, et al. FUSS2015D-P. Virtual Diabetes Technology Meeting. 2020.
6. Zhang JY, et al. J Diabetes Sci Technol.2021;15(3):705-709

* Information contained herein is not medical advice and should not be used as an alternative to speaking with your diabetes healthcare team. Discuss indications, contraindications, warnings, precautions, potential adverse events, and any further information with your diabetes healthcare team.