December 24, 2019 Broken bones and type 1 diabetes

Researchers from the University Hospital Basel in Basel, Switzerland, have found that people with type 1 diabetes and poor blood sugar control have a higher risk of breaking a bone

(resulting from a fall from standing height or less) than those whose blood sugar is well controlled.

In the study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (May 2019), the researchers also looked at whether blood sugar control affects the risk of a broken bone in people with type 2 diabetes. They compared the health records for 3,329 people newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and 44,275 people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. These records included the participants’ A1C levels (the average blood sugar levels over a two- to three-month period) for three years. The target A1C for most people with diabetes is 7%. For this study, “poor control” was defined as a three-year average A1C over 8%.

While having either type of diabetes was a factor in the risk for broken bones, the risk did not seem to change based on blood sugar control for people with type 2 as it did for people with type 1 diabetes. In fact, the risk of fractures was higher among those who took certain oral diabetes drugs compared to people who did not take them.

(This article appeared in Diabetes Dialogue, Autumn 2019)