A review of the Eurodiale studies: what lessons for diabetic foot care?

The prevalence of diabetes has been increasing at an alarming rate worldwide. Treatment of diabetes-related complications adds a huge financial burden on our health services, made worse in the current financial climate. The Eurodiale (European Study Group on Diabetes and the Lower Extremity) study was a prospective observational study conducted in 14 European centers in 2003 to 2004 and included data on characteristics of diabetic patients with foot ulcers, diagnostic and management procedures, health care organization, quality of life, and resource use.

Predictors of outcome in myxoedema coma.

Myxoedema coma is a rare and life-threatening illness the outcome of which has not been robustly studied in large numbers, partly due to its low incidence. Dutta and colleagues have explored outcome predictors in a developing country where access to thyroid function tests is more limited than in the Western world. Cardiovascular instability, reduced consciousness, persistent hypothermia, and sepsis all contributed to a poorer outcome, as has been demonstrated before, but a generic outcome predictor model was shown to be useful in this group of patients.

A novel regulation of IRS1 (insulin receptor substrate-1) expression following short term insulin administration.

Reduced insulin-mediated glucose transport in skeletal muscle is a hallmark of the pathophysiology of T2DM (Type II diabetes mellitus). Impaired intracellular insulin signalling is implicated as a key underlying mechanism. Attention has focused on early signalling events such as defective tyrosine phosphorylation of IRS1 (insulin receptor substrate-1), a major target for the insulin receptor tyrosine kinase.