Insulin-treated diabetes

Diabetes mellitus, commonly known as diabetes, is a group of metabolic disorders characterised by a high blood sugar level, called hyperglycemia, over a prolonged period of time.

There are two major forms of diabetes, namely type 1 and type 2 diabetes:

Type 1 diabetes is characterised by the absence of the capacity to produce insulin, necessitating the use of therapeutic insulin. In type 2 diabetes, there is progressive loss of the capacity to produce insulin, so that insulin therapy may eventually be needed.

Current insulin treatment requires mimicking physiology as much as possible to achieve good glucose control and reduce the risk of micro- and macrovascular complications. This means that people with diabetes need to titrate the doses of insulin to the continuous changes in need on a daily basis. Because of the dozens of factors affecting glucose control and insulin requirements, near-normal glucose control is very often not achieved, so that people remain at elevated risk of vascular complicationsn