[Improved metabolic state in insulin-tested diabetes. Self-testing of blood or urine glucose on 2 days per week]

Randomized serial tests of their metabolic state over four weeks, without self-testing and during daily urinary glucose-profile testing (4 tests) with the Diabur-Test or blood-glucose levels with the Haemo-Gluco-test 20-800 (5 tests daily) on two days weekly were undertaken on 27 unselected insulin-treated outpatient diabetes. HbA1, blood glucose, serum cholesterol, triglycerides and VLDL, LDL and HDL cholesterol were the target values. The following metabolic values were significantly reduced (P less than 0.05) during blood-glucose self-testing, compared with the results during the non-testing phase: HbA1 on average by 11%, blood-glucose (starving) by 20%, serum cholesterol by 9%, serum triglycerides by 13%. Self-testing of urinary glucose (compared with the test-free phase) brought little improvement in the metabolic state. The results of self-testing were the more impressive the worse the metabolic state during the phase without self-testing. Except for VLDL and HDL cholesterol, changes in HbA1 correlated well during all phases with changes in the other metabolic values (P less than 0.05).