Cost-Effective Strategy for Managing Type 2 Diabetes Described in Disease Management
August 26, 2005
Contact Paula Masi,
(914) 740-2163,
pmasi@liebertpub.com

New Rochelle, NY, August 26, 2005— An economic model designed to estimate the impact on health care systems' costs of treating diabetes suggests that adding chromium picolinate plus biotin (Diachrome®)—a safe, effective, and affordable nutritional supplement—to conventional drug treatment for patients with type 2 diabetes could save billions of dollars, according to a report in the August issue (Volume 8, Number 4) of Disease Management, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The paper is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/dis .

Use of Diachrome together with existing pharmacological treatments could yield three-year cost savings of $4-$53 billion for existing patients with diabetes. The study estimated lifetime cost savings at $42 billion for newly diagnosed patients.

Journal Editor-in-Chief and study co-author David B. Nash, M.D., M.B.A., Professor and Chairman, Department of Health Policy, Jefferson Medical College (Philadelphia, PA) and colleagues developed an economic model to gauge the impact on healthcare costs of improved management of hemoglobin A1C (HbA1C) levels in patients with type 2 diabetes using a combination nutritional supplement in addition to conventional medical therapies. Diachrome, which contains both chromium picolinate and biotin, is a safe, effective, and affordable complementary therapy that can improve glycemic control and blood lipid levels and, ultimately, reduces the risk of complications associated with type 2 diabetes. Diachrome can yield average HbA1C reductions of 0.5% to 1.94% with no associated adverse effects.

Estimated average three-year cost savings with Diachrome range from $1,636 for a patient with poorly controlled diabetes without heart disease or hypertension to $5,435 for a patient with poorly controlled diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension.

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