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The care of elderly people with diabetes has become a real public health issue due to the growing number of patients. In these patients, the complications of the pathology are often combined with more particularly gerontological manifestations. It is therefore essential to adapt the therapeutic objectives according to the clinical presentation of each of them. If the new drug classes are promising because they are effective in terms of cardiovascular and renal protection, it is crucial to evaluate their benefit-risk balance for each individual. The quality of care for these elderly patients relies on a well-trained multidisciplinary medical and paramedical team., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Diabetic neuropathy is a frequent and severe degenerative complication of diabetes. The diagnosis is easily performed in painful symptomatic patients. Sensitivity disorders responsible for numbness, tingling, and loss of feeling are part and parcel of diabetic foot syndrome and require investigation in view of preventing trophic ulcers. To date, there exists no specific treatment for diabetic neuropathy possibly preventable by careful control of metabolic disorder. Effective management of diabetic patients would make it possible to limit the dramatic consequences of diabetic neuropathy while at the same time acting on other complications., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors have no potential conflicts of interest to report for this text., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

The care of elderly diabetic patients has now become a real public health issue due to the increase in the number of patients. In this population, complications are more serious and are intertwined with more specifically gerontological issues. Treatment goals should be individualized based on the patient's clinical presentation. New therapeutic drug classes are particularly interesting because of their effectiveness in terms of cardiovascular and renal protection, but the risk/benefit ratio needs to be well assessed on an individual basis. Insulin therapy is often necessary, either in case of failure of oral antidiabetics or because of comorbidities, particularly in the event of renal failure. Educating the patient and family early in the course of the disease is one of the keys to effective and safe treatment. The management of elderly diabetic patients must avoid both too much laxity in those who have successfully aged and unreasonable activism in fragile subjects because of the risk of hypoglycemia., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Background: Little is known about clinical events occurring in older patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus according to their therapeutic modalities based on the prescription of insulin and/or oral antidiabetic drugs., Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the complications of diabetes and geriatric alterations that occurred according to three therapeutic modalities prescribed over 5 years., Methods: A total of 616 patients from the GERODIAB cohort (mean age 77.1 years) were divided into three groups: an insulin-only group (n = 200), a group receiving insulin and one or more oral antidiabetic drug (n = 169), and an oral antidiabetic drug group without insulin (n = 247). We compared the diabetic complications and geriatric alterations that occurred over 5 years in patients without these pre-existing complications., Results: At inclusion, there was a significant difference between glycosylated hemoglobin values, and between the frequencies of most diabetic complications and geriatric alterations, with higher frequencies in the insulin group and lower frequencies in the oral antidiabetic drug group. At the end of the follow-up, there was still a significant difference between the mean glycosylated hemoglobin of the three groups (mean for all patients 7.4 ± 0.8%). The frequencies of new clinical events were high and they were generally higher in the insulin group. They were not significantly different between the three groups, with the exception of four events: heart failure, retinopathy, transfer to a nursing home (more frequent in the insulin group), and hypoglycemia (more frequent in the insulin + oral antidiabetic drug group). Some frequencies of the total diabetic complications (including complications at inclusion and at the follow-up) in the oral antidiabetic drug group were close to those in the insulin group, although only at inclusion. Mortality was higher in the insulin group and lower in the oral antidiabetic drug group., Conclusions: The increased frequency of hypoglycemia in the insulin + oral antidiabetic drug group raises doubts about the value of continuing a secretagogue drug when insulin is introduced. As the vast majority of patients were not yet receiving antidiabetic drugs with cardiovascular action, our results on heart failure could help in conducting specific studies on these drugs in older patients with type 2 diabetes., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)

Aims/hypothesis: Diabetes has been recognised as a pejorative prognostic factor in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Since diabetes is typically a disease of advanced age, it remains unclear whether diabetes remains a COVID-19 risk factor beyond advanced age and associated comorbidities. We designed a cohort study that considered age and comorbidities to address this question., Methods: The Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and Diabetes Outcomes (CORONADO) initiative is a French, multicentric, cohort study of individuals with (exposed) and without diabetes (non-exposed) admitted to hospital with COVID-19, with a 1:1 matching on sex, age (±5 years), centre and admission date (10 March 2020 to 10 April 2020). Comorbidity burden was assessed by calculating the updated Charlson comorbidity index (uCCi). A predefined composite primary endpoint combining death and/or invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV), as well as these two components separately, was assessed within 7 and 28 days following hospital admission. We performed multivariable analyses to compare clinical outcomes between patients with and without diabetes., Results: A total of 2210 pairs of participants (diabetes/no-diabetes) were matched on age (mean±SD 69.4±13.2/69.5±13.2 years) and sex (36.3% women). The uCCi was higher in individuals with diabetes. In unadjusted analysis, the primary composite endpoint occurred more frequently in the diabetes group by day 7 (29.0% vs 21.6% in the no-diabetes group; HR 1.43 [95% CI 1.19, 1.72], p<0.001). After multiple adjustments for age, BMI, uCCi, clinical (time between onset of COVID-19 symptoms and dyspnoea) and biological variables (eGFR, aspartate aminotransferase, white cell count, platelet count, C-reactive protein) on admission to hospital, diabetes remained associated with a higher risk of primary composite endpoint within 7 days (adjusted HR 1.42 [95% CI 1.17, 1.72], p<0.001) and 28 days (adjusted HR 1.30 [95% CI 1.09, 1.55], p=0.003), compared with individuals without diabetes. Using the same adjustment model, diabetes was associated with the risk of IMV, but not with risk of death, within 28 days of admission to hospital., Conclusions/interpretation: Our results demonstrate that diabetes status was associated with a deleterious COVID-19 prognosis irrespective of age and comorbidity status., Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04324736., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)