Gender differences in the blood glucose type 2 diabetes patients with combination rapid and long acting insulin therapy

Objectives Previous research suggests that there may be intergender differences in the profile of glycemic control achievable during the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus. This preliminary study was conducted to determine differences in glycemic outcomes in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients amongst men and women in an Indonesian hospital. Methods The study was conducted at the outpatient internal medicine polyclinic of Universitas Airlangga Teaching Hospital Surabaya. This observational prospective cohort study examining outcomes for 64 patients (32 men and 32 women) treated with insulin therapy. The primary outcome measure was the extent to which subjects achieved concordance with the target blood glucose parameters based on the American Diabetes Association (ADA) guidance. Results After 3 months of combination basal-bolus insulin treatment, the proportion of subjects who had fasting blood glucose values in the target range did not increase for either gender. For women, there was a significantly higher proportion of subjects who achieved a postprandial glucose value within the target range (p=0.04) Conclusions In this study, patients achieved postprandial glycemic outcomes for women but not men. More research is required to elucidate the possible intergender difference in results for subjects treated with basal-bolus insulin for type 2 diabetes mellitus.