Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Aging patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus have a higher risk of developing hypoglycemia. Many studies show the effect of beta-blockers in hiding hypoglycemia symptoms and therefore the occurrence of a severe hypoglycemia. These agents are commonly used in diabetic patients with coronary heart disease. The aim of this study was to assess whether the use of beta-blockersdeteriorates the glycemic control.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective study involved 101 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus followed at the National Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology of Tunis. All patients were over 65 years old.

Results: The average age was 70.69 ± 5 years. Sex ratio were four female for one male. The majority of patients(71.1%)had a high blood pressure while 21% had a coronary heart disease. The average HbA1c was 9.55 ± 1.92%. Seventy eight percent were treated with insulin. About a third (30.9%) of patients was treated with beta-blockers; only 37% of them had at least one episode of hypoglycemia and only 13.3% reached the glycemic control target of less than 8% of glycated haemoglobin(HbA1c) vs 26.8% as a percentage of achieving the glycemic goal in patients not taking beta-blockers.

Conclusion: Our study indicates that the use of beta-blockersmay have a role in worsening the glycemic control, so that many physicians are reluctant to prescribe them to patients with diabetes and hypertension but their use is inevitable type 2 diabetic patientswith coronary heart disease.