Arithmetic Ability May Affect Diabetes

Diabetes is a disease that can’t be cured yet; it can only be controlled. Part of the control is with your diet, and carbohydrate and caloric intake, so you need to be able to figure this out. If your diabetes is being controlled by insulin, it’s essential that you understand the numbers behind your blood glucose (sugar) levels and the amount of insulin you must take every day.

Unfortunately, not everyone does well in arithmetic or math in school, or may  be educated. This can prove to be a significant stumbling block for proper control of diabetes. Interestingly, much has been said lately about health literacy, being able to read the instructions from a doctor or how to take medications,. Not as much information has been placed on health numeracy, which is the ability to work with basic numbers.

Study Group

Researchers, who published their findings in the September 2009 issue of the journal Diabetes Care, were from Nashville, TN. They studied 398 adults adults who were receiving treatment for type 2 diabetes; 383 were analyzed for the study. To participate in the study, patients had to be African American or white. Sixty-two percent were taking insulin to help manage their diabetes.

The average age was 56 years; the group was split evening, 50/50 between men and women, and 35% of the group was African American. Fifty-six percent of all patients had higher than high school education, 31% less than grade 9 reading level, and 69% had less than a grade 9 numeracy level.

Tasks

The patients were asked to do the different tasks they needed to do to help regulate their blood glucose at home. This included knowing how to read food labels and interpreting them for calories and carbohydrates, as well a keeping of their blood glucose and the amount of insulin they would have to give themselves.

It’s already known that being older may contribute to lower education levels because of the way our society functioned a few generations ago. Lower income areas also have lower education rates and, as a result, this may happen within certain ethnic groups. This is what raised the interest among the researchers.

Special issues for African Americans

Doctors know that many African Americans have difficult-to-control diabetes. Because there are some illnesses that are worse in some races, such as hypertension in African Americans, the researchers wondered if this was the case with diabetes or if there could be other factors that played a role.

By investigating the race (African American and white), ages, education levels, reading levels and math levels, the researchers were able to find that there was a difference between ability to control the blood sugar and education. And, because the white group tended to be more educated, the African Americans, especially older ones, had poor blood sugar control. And, not surprisingly, they had the lowest literacy and numeracy scores.

Why are such studies important? Because if researchers can pinpoint these factors, programs can be developed to address the weaknesses in healthcare delivery. If what is needed is a push for education, then the researchers know where this education may be most important.

It’s no surprise that low literacy skills and low numeracy skills would make it more difficult to manage a chronic disease like diabetes. The trick is to now help work around that.

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