Being better off by doing less, whatever one's condition

IT is invariable that all of us at some point in time will require having medical tests to assess our health status and some may have conditions that require regular monitoring. How then can we minimise our tests and yet get the right diagnosis? If you have diabetes, how then can you reduce the need to prick your fingers daily and yet not have increased risk of adverse outcomes? Some recent trials have provided us with data that suggest sometimes doing less can be better.

Should diabetic patients monitor their blood sugar level daily?

The conventional wisdom and intuitive thinking are that daily monitoring of blood sugar in diabetic patients on medication (but not requiring insulin) will lead to better outcomes and better sugar control. However, the surprising result published in the American Journal of Medicine, June 2017, a randomised study in a primary healthcare setting, conducted over a year, indicated that the blood sugar control in non-insulin-treated patients with Type 2 diabetes that self-monitored were not better as compared to the group who did not monitor. What was also interesting was that adverse outcomes such as…