Time-in-range as a target in type 2 diabetes: An urgent need

Abstract

Time-in-range emerged as a valuable blood glucose metric, ‘beyond HbA1c’ for a deeper insight into glycemic control in people with diabetes. It denotes the proportion of time that a person's glucose level remains within the desired target range (usually 70–180 mg/dL or 3.9–10.0 mmol/L). Though clinical targets in the current recommendations for type 1 and type 2 diabetes are close enough, their clinical profiles and prevalences are quite different.Type 2 diabetes is the commonest form of diabetes. Many clinical trials have challenged the usefulness of HbA1c as a glycemic target for Type 2 diabetes mellitus. On account of the higher prevalence and complications of type 2 diabetes, more outcomes-based studies are needed to associate time-in-range with its ongoing risk. These studies strongly support the dependability of time-in-range to identify patients with elevated risk in type 2 diabetes. We discuss the utility of time-in-range, a new metric of continuous glucose monitoring as an outcome measure to correlate with type 2 diabetes risks and complications and to analyze the effectiveness of type 2 diabetes management. This approach may support the use of time-in-range as a metric for long-term health outcomes in the type 2 diabetes population.

Keywords

• Time-in-range
• Type 2 diabetes
• Continuous glucose monitoring
• HbA1c