OREANDA-NEWS. The European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) holds its annual meeting in Munich, Germany from September 12-16, 2016. 

The conference brings together diabetes experts, doctors and academics from around the world to discuss issues relating to diabetes management. It is also an international forum to share and advance research into diabetes. 

This year EASD event will provide an opportunity for Sanofi to present the latest results from a groundbreaking 10-year study into diabetes care: the International Diabetes Management Practices Study (IDMPS), which is the largest observational study of adult diabetes in the developing world. 

Started in 2005, this study has been conducted in phases (or ‘waves’), and involved 72,000 people with diabetes Type 1 and Type 2, in 48 countries across Central and South America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Central Europe. More than 5000 healthcare providers are involved in the research. Data is collected for each person in a standardized format, allowing findings from across the world to be compared in a uniform manner.

Wide-ranging diabetes research 

The six first waves of the study have studied the level of diabetes control, the barriers to insulin therapy, health resource use, the frequency of episodes of hypoglycemia, the frequency and severity of the symptoms of depression, and the level of diabetes self-management. Across each phase, diabetes education and the management of care of diabetes have been central themes. 

Call to action has been made after the first results published in Diabetes Care in 2009. There were related to lack of glycemic control and the poor screening of diabetes-related complications and the insufficient self-empowerment of people with diabetes.

Wave 5 results on diabetes and depression 

Pablo Aschner, Director of Research at the San Ignacio University Hospital, Scientific Director of the Colombian Diabetes Association and member of the study’s steering committee, will present the results of the fifth phase of the study at the EASD Congress in Munich (September 16th, 9:45 a.m.), which focused on diabetes and the frequency and severity of symptoms of depression. 

Despite depression in diabetes being a widely acknowledged problem, it is still an issue that is too often ignored.

While statistics are hard to pinpoint, we know that depression is prevalent among people diagnosed with diabetes, and that it affects those treated with insulin more than patients on oral medications. 30% of people with Type 1 diabetes and 46% of people with Type 2 diabetes report mild to severe depressive symptoms.

Depression is also believed to be more common among diabetics who are managing multiple health concerns. 

Phase five of the IDMPS will help raise awareness in both the scientific community and among the general public about the relationship between diabetes and depression in developing countries, and about the need to address it. 

The seventh phase of the study started in 2016 and is examining in particular the adherence and the reasons for discontinuation of insulin therapy, the potential relationship with the occurrence of hypoglycaemia and its economic impact.