The ACBRD at #ADA2022

We recently attended and presented work at the American Diabetes Association 82nd Scientific Sessions in New Orleans

By Jasmine Schipp

The 82nd Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association were held in June. Staff and students from the ACBRD presented their latest work – virtually and in person. I presented and attended several sessions in person in New Orleans. Here is a brief summary of the work we presented, and my highlights from the psychosocial sessions.

Prof Jane Speight co-convened and presented in the ‘stigma in diabetes care: evidence and solutions’ symposium. Jane highlighted that diabetes has a big image problem, which likely contributes to the stigma experienced by people with diabetes. She noted increasing calls to action to stop diabetes stigma. She also called for more strategies, campaigns, research, better clinical care, and more advocacy. Dr Rebecca Pearl presented evidence on the experiences and impact of weight stigma. Dr Kevin Joiner focused on the role of health professionals in perpetuating diabetes stigma. He also discussed the training videos he is developing at University of Michigan to improve the language used in diabetes care. Finally, Dr Susan Guzman discussed the stigma experienced by people with type 1 diabetes. She called on all of us to take the judgement out of diabetes care. You can read more on this symposium in DiaTribe’s summary here.

I presented findings from our research in collaboration with the OPEN project. We looked at psychosocial outcomes among adults and children with type 1 diabetes using open-source artificial pancreas systems. We found that adults using these devices report better outcomes on eight different measures than those not using these systems. This includes issues such as sleep quality, diabetes distress, and quality of life. Children who are using these devices also report better outcomes compared to those not using these systems. These results show that these devices may have a beneficial impact. Further research is needed to examine the reasons for these differences.

Dr Melanie Broadley and Dr Uffe Søholm presented findings from the HypoRESOLVE study. HypoRESOLVE is a large European study on which Prof Jane Speight and Dr Christel Hendrieckx collaborate. Melanie presented the early findings from a review of the impact of hypoglycaemia (low blood glucose) on cognitive function. Large effects were shown for attention and working memory. Moderate effects were shown for more complex reasoning tasks. Uffe presented the early findings from the HypoMETRICS study. HypoMETRICS is examining how low glucose while asleep affects daily functioning among adults with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Early data from those with type 1 diabetes show the potentially pivotal role of hypoglycemia on sleep quality, mood and alertness.

Highlights:

Next year, the ADA sessions will be held in San Diego, California, USA (23 – 27 June).

For more about stigma, check out these blogs.

For more about technology in diabetes care, check out these blogs.

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