All in one place: management of type 1 diabetes in adults

Huge advances have been made in treatments and technologies for type 1 diabetes, ‘but there are many people who still do not reach the target levels of glucose that we would need in order to prevent long-term complications,’ says Richard Holt, Professor of Diabetes and Endocrinology at the University of Southampton. He was EASD co-chair of the ADA/EASD consensus report on the management of type 1 diabetes in adults that was designed to help address this problem.

Alongside updating guidance to match rapid advances, the report was also deemed necessary because guidance for type 1 diabetes is often found in places where there is also guidance for type 2 diabetes. ‘What we wanted to do was to bring together within a single report the major areas that healthcare professionals need to consider,’ says Professor Holt.

In Module 1 of our new course, The management of type 1 diabetes in adults, Professor Holt takes you on a tour of the consensus report. ’The idea of the module is to give you an overview of the report to help you manage people with type 1 diabetes better,’ he says, ‘and help support them through their journey with type 1 diabetes.’

It takes you through a vast range of topics from the report, from diagnosis and management of new-onset diabetes to transplantation and psychosocial care. The latter is covered as an important standalone topic, recognising the burden of living with type 1 diabetes for both the person and their family, ’but it was really influential on many of the sections of the report,’ says Professor Holt. Personalised care and individual targets also come through as important recurring themes.

The module also gives you an insight into the level of detail and advice given in the report. For example, in the section on hypoglycaemia, Professor Holt discusses the report’s endorsement of the latest International Hypoglycaemia Study Group’s definition for hypoglycaemia, as well as the recognised and recommended treatments for it. However, there’s even more detail for individual circumstances, such as for those using automated insulin-delivery systems. ‘We provide advice for perhaps using slightly lower quantities of carbohydrates in an individual who is using an automated insulin-delivery device where the insulin will have been suspended as a result of the predictive or low glucose,’ says Professor Holt.

Case studies are interspersed throughout the module, helping you to think about how to bring the learning from the report into clinical practice. When the report was presented, there was a co-publication in Diabetes Care and Diabetologia [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34590174/]. ‘I would strongly encourage you to read the paper in full and really gain those very useful clinical nuggets that are included within the report,’ says Professor Holt.

For Professor Holt’s module ‘ADA/EASD 2021 consensus report’, enrol on the new EASD e-Learning course, Management of type 1 diabetes in adults, launching today.

Any opinions expressed in this article are the responsibility of the EASD e-Learning Programme Manager, Dr Eleanor D Kennedy