[Insulin combinations: improving the treatment of juvenile diabetes]

In order to establish some general insulin therapy norms, a study was performed on a group of 77 young diabetics (average age 11.7) over the course of a 14 day stay at a summer camp. The children were placed on an appropriate diabetic diet and received twice daily insulin injections. 83.1% of the group (N = 64) ended up using a mixture of Regular and NPH insulin while the other 16.9% used only NPH insulin. Daily, two-thirds of the total dosage was given before breakfast (63.4 +/- 9.6%) and the other one-third (36.6 +/- 9.6%) was given before dinner. The proportion of mixed insulins were the following: before breakfast 10.3 +/- 6.6% Regular, 89.7 +/- 6.6% NPH; before dinner 12.5 +/- 7.3% Regular, 87.5 +/- 7.3% NPH, 14.9% of the blood glucose tests showed hypoglycemia. The majority of these results were after some physical activity (37.8% before breakfast, 20.7% before dinner) and a few (18.3%) become so at night. Thus, this work reflects the importance of proportion and regularity of insulin use, as well as the need for bedtime blood glucose levels in children with diabetes.