feet cracking open symptoms of diabetes

While patients with type 2 were not studied in the DCCT, the eye, kidney, and nerve abnormalities are quite similar in both types of diabetes, and it is likely that similar underlying mechanisms apply. Several important differences, however, must be considered. Since patients with type 2 diabetes are generally older with a high incidence of macrovascular disease, an episode of severe hypoglycemia entails much greater risk than it would in a younger patient with type 1 diabetes. Moreover, weight gain may be much greater in obese persons with type 2 diabetes in whom intensive insulin therapy is attempted. These risks take on a greater relevance in older patients with type 2 diabetes because the prevalence of microangiopathy is relatively lower than in those patients with type 1 diabetes; preventing microvascular disease in patients with type 2 diabetes is much less likely to influence morbidity and mortality because of the greater consequences of their macrovascular disease.
To address the issues raised by the DCCT findings as well as a previous concern that sulfonylureas may increase cardiovascular deaths, as reported in 1970 by the University Group Diabetes Program, randomized clinical trials of intensive therapy have been conducted in patients with type 2 diabetes.
( from current MD&T 2005)