Effects of self monitoring of triglyceride concentrations in non-insulin dependent diabetes.

BMJ 1993;306:493 Cardiovascular disease is three times more common in diabetic patients than the non-diabetic population and is the main cause of death in people with non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus.' The importance of the plasma triglyceride concentration as a risk factor for coronary heart disease in the general population is still uncertain. In diabetic patients, however, triglyceride concentrations are an important predictor of coronary heart disease,2 and patients with non-insulin dependent diabetes are twice as likely as non-diabetic people to be dyslipidaemic,3 hypertriglyceridaemia being the commonest lipid abnormality.4 As diabetic patients have little feedback on their daily lipid concentrations we aimed at determining whether self monitoring of plasma triglyceride concentrations improved lipid concentrations (and perhaps indirectly glucose concentrations) in patients with non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus.