Diabetes control in Swedish community dwelling elderly: more often tight than poor

. Objective.  To determine glycaemic control in elderly patients with diabetes living in community dwelling. Design.  Descriptive, cross‐sectional and open. Prospective with regard to blood glucose. Setting.  Community‐dwelling in‐patients. Subjects.  From a total number of 351 patients in seven Swedish centres of community dwelling we identified and recruited all 45 patients with diabetes receiving treatment with insulin, and/or oral medication. Main outcome measures.  Blood glucose was measured fasting, 2 h after breakfast, in the evening and at night, for three consecutive days. Results.  Mean HbA1c was 5.9 ± 1.1% (range 3.6–8.6%). The patients were split in three HbA1c‐groups for analysis: lower‐ (3.6–5.3%), middle‐ (5.4–6.3%) and higher‐tertile (6.4–8.6%). The groups where similar with regard to age, time in community dwelling, ability to eat and move around independently, but body mass index was lower in the lower tertile ( P  < 0.003 and P  < 0.04, compared with middle‐ and higher‐tertiles). We recorded 14 episodes with blood glucose ≤4.0 mmol L −1 in eight patients. Blood glucose ≤4.0 mmol L −1 was mostly recorded during night ( n  = 8) or in the morning ( n  = 3). Conclusions.  Swedish patients with diabetes in community dwelling are over‐ rather than under‐treated and have low HbA1c levels. Despite very regular eating habits and near total compliance with medication, hypoglycaemias are frequent and possibly linked to malnutrition.