Stuttgart  - A new German study shows that diabetes patients are rarely treated successfully for the disease.

The results, published in the Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift, show that many people suffer elevated blood-sugar levels even after treatment for Type 2 diabetes mellitus.

The addition of standardized guidelines for diagnosis and therapy, both implemented during the study conducted between 2002 and 2002 on 4,020 patients, has led to little improvement.

Indeed, results worsened during the study. When it started, 43 per cent of patients had achieved optimum blood-sugar levels. By the end of the study, only 37 per cent had done so. The poor results stem from the fact that too many patients were treated with glucose tablets for too long, the study found.

The authors recommend intensifying treatment at an earlier stage, in conjunction with the use of insulin.

Other difficulties lie in the treatment of medical conditions that accompany diabetes, such as excess body weight, high blood pressure and increased blood lipid levels. Efforts to control these symptoms also worsened during the study.

The authors have called for an urgent reform of the quality of therapy for diabetes patients. Diabetes is not just the most common disease in Germany, but the most expensive to treat. (dpa)