A new study conducted at Soroka University Medical Center in collaboration with Ben- Gurion University of the Negev examined the relationship between hyperglycemia (high blood sugar level) and driving ability. An article on the study was recently published in the journal Diabetes and Metabolism.
Hyperglycemia is a high level of glucose (sugar) in the blood that often occurs in people with diabetes. This condition results from excess insulin, overly strenuous activity, or lack of food (carbohydrates) relative to the amount of insulin in the blood. Acute hyperglycemia is known to cause cognitive impairment. It has been found to impair sensory skills and motor responses and may increase a driver's risk of being involved in a car accident. While all diabetes-related driving studies have focused on the risk of hypoglycemic events while driving, research on the effects of acute hyperglycemia on simulator driving skills had yet to be investigated before this study was conducted.
The multidisciplinary team of researchers from Soroka Medical Center and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev included Dr. Alon Haim, Prof. Eli Hershkowitz, and Dr. Neta Leventhal from the Pediatric Endocrinology Unit at the Saban Pediatric Medical Center at Soroka; Dr. Rotem Shalev, from Department of Pediatric Medicine D at Soroka and Dr. Idit Liberty, director of the Diabetes Clinic at Soroka; Shai Tejman-Yarden, from the Safra Children's Hospital at Tel Hashomer; and Dana Riedel, Dr. Avinoam Borowsky, and Dr. Yisrael Parmet from the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
The study included twenty-six drivers with diabetes (16 men and 10 women, ages 24.3 ± 5.4 years) who were asked to navigate nine dangerous scenarios in a driving simulator at the Human Performance Evaluation Laboratory at the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management twice, once with a normal sugar level and once in a state of acute hyperglycemia (average glucose level 321) in a study that used a balanced crossover design.
During the test, driving performance was continuously monitored by the driving simulator system, which collects a large number of vehicle parameters (driving speed, steering wheel angle, acceleration) and other parameters related to driving (location of vehicles and other obstacles, speed of other entities) as well as a mobile eye-tracking system to track the location of the participants' gaze on the virtual world.
The study aimed to evaluate the effects of acute hyperglycemia on the abilities of young drivers with type 1 diabetes to recognize and respond to risk factors while driving compared to their abilities when their blood sugar levels were normal. Identifying risk factors is one of the most important driving skills for safe driving.
The findings showed that driving performance is significantly impaired in a state of acute hyperglycemia and that when glucose levels were high, driving performance was significantly impaired, as was demonstrated, for example in a failure to maintain distance and a lower likelihood of identifying risk factors.
Dr. Alon Haim, director of the Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes Unit at Soroka: "This study shows that a high blood sugar level impairs the ability to drive and provides preliminary evidence of the negative effects of acute hyperglycemia on important driving skills such as the perception of risk factors and speed management. People with diabetes need to be aware of this."
Dr. Avinoam Borowsky, head of the Human Performance Evaluation Laboratory at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev: "The results of the study emphasize the importance of using a driving simulator and the risk factor perception index as an effective tool for evaluating the performance of test subjects and the level of safety under different physiological conditions."
