Beyond Type 1 sat down with Dexcom Chief Operating Officer, Jacob Leach, to debate the usage of Dexcom G7 in individuals with gestational diabetes.
Gestational diabetes is a type of diabetes developed while pregnant in individuals who don’t have already got diabetes. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) explains that the treatment of gestational diabetes goals to maintain blood glucose levels equal to those of pregnant women without gestational diabetes. Treatment may include special meal plans, scheduled physical activity, blood glucose testing and insulin injections.
BT1: Are you able to explain why someone with gestational diabetes may determine to make use of the Dexcom G7? Is that this a choice they’re making with their doctor?
Jacob Leach, Dexcom COO: The G7 is our first product that was approved to be used in pregnancy in the US. We’re really excited in regards to the opportunity to bring continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) to more people to assist. Because it’s a prescription device, this can be a decision they’re making with their healthcare provider.
It’s a useful tool in pregnancy. It’s a significantly better solution to monitor glucose readings. With gestational diabetes, it impacts as much as 10% of all pregnancies within the U.S. The prevalence is kind of high. About half of all women who experience gestational diabetes find yourself being diagnosed with type 2 later in life.
The CGM helps provide feedback every five minutes day-after-day. It helps the patient understand how their food plan and food decisions influence their blood sugar levels and inform the medication they should take. Individuals who wear the CGM, with all that feedback, are capable of do a significantly better job of managing their blood glucose readings.
Are you able to speak to how individuals with gestational diabetes can use the Dexcom G7 with their doctor to visualise and understand every day variations of their blood glucose levels? What’s the Dexcom G7 uniquely positioned to do in that capability?
It’s probably the most accurate CGM available. Considered one of the things that’s really vital is getting those accurate and reliable readings since you’re making decisions off them—the system has alerts built into it in order that when glucose goes out of range, it notifies the user. Mainly, it is basically helpful for the mother and the physician.
The expectant mother can get feedback around each meal, like how that exact meal impacted her glucose reading. What you’ll be able to see is that different meals—different compositions of carbohydrates, proteins, all those things—impact glucose variability. It’s hard to know that until you see it.
It’s a part of education. For the healthcare provider, it’s a very important tool to tailor the therapy. If it’s the primary time an individual with gestational diabetes is doing insulin injections, it will possibly be complicated. The CGM really helps simplify things. It helps understand how insulin is acting—is it reducing glucose values as expected? Do you would like a little bit more? Do it’s good to adjust the dose? It’s helpful for the physician and mother.
It’s reported that the usage of CGMs comparable to Dexcom G7 are related to a lower risk of Preeclampsia is a complication of pregnancy. With preeclampsia, you would possibly have hypertension, high levels of protein in urine that indicate kidney damage (proteinuria), or other signs of organ damage. Preeclampsia often begins after 20 weeks of pregnancy in women whose blood pressure had previously been in the usual range. (Mayo Clinic)preeclampsia, a lower rate of C-sections, and lower gestational weight in patients with gestational diabetes. Are you able to explain to our audience what exactly that every one means and why it’s vital?
It [Dexcom G7] principally produces a significantly better overall end result for the pregnancy. With gestational diabetes, there are higher risk aspects for lots of the items that you simply mentioned. When managing glucose, you manage those risk aspects. That’s really what real-time data does.
How do you foresee standardized use of CGMs impacting individuals with diabetes—whether gestational, type 1 or type 2—within the short and long run?
With the Dexcom G7, we’ve proven, in multiple large randomized controlled trials, that there are positive outcomes related to the usage of the CGM—lower A1C and more time in range. These particular A1C reductions are related to higher outcomes. The concept is that, over time, in case your glucose is healthier managed, you’re going to feel higher and live a healthier life. You have got less of the complications down the road.
That’s really what the CGM is about—giving people the data they should make the very best decisions they will for his or her diabetes.
What does an individual with gestational diabetes’s journey with Dexcom appear to be after they’ve given birth? What type of ongoing support systems are advised or provided?
The prescription is written by their physician, after which the expected mother wears the product all over the pregnancy. After they’ve given birth, it’s as much as the mother and physician to find out the continued utilization of the CGM.
We’re really enthusiastic about Dexcom being probably the most connected CGM. What which means is we principally connect our data streams to multiple other applications that the user chooses. It’ll be exciting to see what else gets developed around information and data evaluation in pregnancy. Particularly for girls with gestational diabetes, potential solutions may be developed by Dexcom and by others who try to supply the user with optimum care.
This content mentions Dexcom, an lively partner of Beyond Type 1.
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