Full Length Research Paper
Abstract
Comparing the quality of life of herbal medicine users with those undergoing anti-diabetic treatments in real-life scenarios for type II diabetes, this retrospective parallel group study focused on follow-up data from medical records of the nine months preceding the survey day of consenting type 2 diabetic patients. The SF-36 questionnaire, translated into French, was used. Alpha was set at 5%. The groups, Classic Antidiabetics (GA, n=60) and Traditional Medicine (GT, n=15), had comparable average ages (52.8 vs. 50 years), body mass index, and sedentary lifestyle. The mean blood glucose at M0 was not different between the groups (1.85 vs. 1.15 g/l, p=0.3). However, the glycemic balance was (7.58 vs. 6.5%, p=0.001). From M0 to M8 follow-up, complications were dominated by hypertensive attacks in GT (85.7%) and hypoglycemia (18.2%) and infections (12.1%) in GA. GT showed poor compliance. Mental health (69.01% vs. 91.61%, p=0.001) and physical health (71.07 vs. 83.65%, p=0.02) were significantly better in GT. On the other hand, physical function (84.04 vs. 94.67%, p=0.06) and physical limitation (60.42 vs. 76.67%, p=0.12) were comparable in the two groups. This study highlighted the usefulness of traditional therapy, as patients on traditional therapy had a better quality of life score with comparable cardiovascular and metabolic risks to those of the antidiabetic group, despite their poor compliance. Further studies are needed to confirm these findings.
Key words: Clinical trials, quality of life, safety, antidiabetics, traditional medicine.
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