Tools- of Changes

Study Shows Texting as Good as Medication at Improving Type 2 Diabetes Management

Low-income Hispanics with Type 2 diabetes who received health-related text messages every day for six months saw improvements in their blood sugar levels that equaled those resulting from some glucose-lowering medications, according to researchers with the Scripps Whittier Diabetes Institute.

The Dulce Digital clinical trial represents the first randomized controlled study to look at the use of text messages to help underserved Hispanics better self-manage their diabetes through glycemic control.

The results were published by Diabetes Care in an online pre-print version of the study, which is scheduled to be published in a future issue of the journal.

"As a low-cost intervention, we believe text messaging has great potential to improve the management of diabetes, especially among patients who struggle, due to employment, transportation and other barriers, to access health care services," said Athena Philis-Tsimikas, M.D., corporate vice president of Scripps Whittier. "The data from our new study proves that this an effective approach." 

For more details read:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-06-texting-good-medication-diabetes.html#jCp

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/early/2017/05/31/dc17-0230