Topic:

Gestational diabetes – glucose intolerance occurring during pregnancy – is relatively common, affecting around four in every hundred pregnancies. A lot of research has linked low birth weight in babies born to mothers with diabetes to increased risk of vascular disease in later adult life. But much less attention has been focused on the mother's subsequent health risks after having gestational diabetes. In this article, we review the increased risk of diabetes and vascular disease in later life in women suffering gestational diabetes and how to improve follow-up and prevention.

As the world population continues to age and the proportion of the elderly suffering from diabetes increases compared to other age groups, the health burden of diabetes in the elderly is set to continue to rise. Practices need to be prepared to cope with a near doubling of the number of elderly people with diabetes over the next twenty years. In this article, we review the particular challenges of managing diabetes in the older patient.

Atrial fibrillation patients with insulin-requiring diabetes are at greater risk of suffering a stroke or systemic embolism than those with non-insulin requiring diabetes, or no diabetes at all. While diabetes is a known risk factor for thromboembolic events, this finding sheds new light on the role of insulin in the clinical setting.

Diabetes UK is looking for nurses to take part in its Clinical Champions programme and lead improvements in diabetes care. The award-winning initiative launched in 2014, in partnership with Novo Nordisk, to address the significant variation in patient care and treatment for people living with diabetes in the UK.

The number of people with diabetes in the UK is almost 1.8 million and this is continuing to rise, according to recent figures. But only about half of these are currently diagnosed. It is obviously essential to ensure that these people are diagnosed as early as possible and then managed appropriately to ensure they receive the best possible care to minimise long-term complications. In this article, we review how to diagnose diabetes accurately, based on good practice recommended in standard two of the National Service Framework (NSF) for Diabetes. What should we be measuring in people who present with the classic symptoms and in those who do not to ensure an accurate diagnosis of diabetes?

Diabetes affects approximately 3-4% of the British population but is thought to be significantly under-diagnosed. How can we improve the number of patients who are diagnosed early and so improve their risk of long-term complications?