Drivers with Type 1 diabetes may be more prone to car crashes than healthy people. But the study by doctors from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville suggests that people with Type 2 diabetes aren’t unusually accident-prone, even if they’re taking insulin.
“Type 1 diabetic drivers reported significantly more crashes, moving violations, episodes of hypoglycemic stupor and required assistance while driving compared to Type 2 diabetics or spouse-control subjects,” writes lead author Daniel J. Cox, a researcher with the university.
The study is reported in the current issue of the journal Diabetes Care.
Type 1 diabetes develops when the pancreas can no longer manufacture insulin, requiring an outside supply. In Type 2 diabetes the body manufactures enough insulin but is not able to efficiently utilize it.
The researchers think the drop in blood sugar more commonly seen in Type 1 diabetes may precipitate the driving dangers. They suggested that the study results could be instrumental in developing guidelines to reduce risks on the road through improved patient counseling.
Grace under fire
Though Israelis are deeply affected by terrorist acts that occur in their daily lives, the psychological impact “may be considered moderate,” say the authors of a survey appearing in the Aug. 6 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, an edition devoted to violence and human rights.
The study was led by Dr. Avraham Bleich of Lev-Hasharon Mental Health Center of the Tel-Aviv University Sackler School of Medicine in Israel. In a three-year round of terrorism that has left 820 dead and 5,640 injured accoring to the Israel Defense Forces Web site after an Aug. 14 update, no studies had looked at the psychological impact of this violence until now, the authors assert (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text).
The researchers surveyed 512 people across Israel, Jewish and Arab. Of the respondents, 16 percent said they had been exposed to a terrorist attack, while 37 percent said a family member or friend had been exposed. Sixty percent said they felt their lives were in danger.
Nevertheless, a high proportion of respondents reported feeling optimistic about their personal future (82 percent) and Israel’s future (66 percent), a finding that seems to indicate that strong adaptive psychological mechanisms are at play, the researchers say.
