The amount of time people with diabetes spend in the ideal blood glucose range has a big impact on their daily lives, but only a third feel that their current diabetes therapy is “very successful” at keeping their blood glucose between 70 and 180 mg/dl throughout the day. This unmet need was one of the key findings about patient-reported outcomes in diabetes that we presented to the FDA at its recent “Outcomes Beyond A1c” workshop1.
More ‘time-in-range’ also seems linked to better mental and emotional health. When asked what would be most likely to put them in a positive frame of mind about their diabetes and general health, adults with type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes on insulin were most likely to select ‘blood glucose numbers are on-target all day’.
Furthermore, time spent in an ideal blood glucose range appears to be correlated with mental well-being. We asked 3,500 people with type 1 and 2 diabetes to estimate the share of their day spent in the ideal blood glucose range (70-180 mg/dl), and used an established research tool2 to gauge their psychological functioning, happiness, and life satisfaction. We found that people who spend more time in range on a typical day have higher levels of mental well-being, on average, than those who spend less time with their blood glucose in range. As time spent in range increases, the share of respondents with ‘low’ mental well-being drops significantly and the share with ‘high’ mental well-being rises significantly3. Unfortunately, less than half of people with diabetes estimate that they spend more than 75% of their time with their blood glucose in the ideal range.
Time-in-range is an important outcome for people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, not only because it measures daily fluctuations in blood glucose levels, but also because it may impact mental well-being more generally.
We are continuing to investigate the relationship between time-in-range and mental well-being; if you want to know more, have an opinion about this topic, or have a suggestion for research, let us know!
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