A new study in the British Medical Journal should give pause to doctors considering intensive glucose lowering treatment for their type 2 diabetic patients. While tightly controlling a patient s blood sugar levels seems like an obvious approach, and does indeed have some benefits, such as a slightly lowered risk of heart attack, the new study found a 100 percent increase in the risk of dangerously low blood levels (hypoglycemia), which in some cases can be fatal.
Dr. Catherine Cornu of the Louis Pradel Hospital in Bron, France led a team of researchers who performed a meta-analysis of 13 studies involving nearly 35,000 patients with type 2 diabetes. Over 18,000 subjects received intensive glucose lowering treatment, which included either oral hypoglycemics in various combinations, or insulin. These subjects were compared with 16,000 subjects who received a standard, less intensive glucose lowering treatment, and with a placebo group. The results were disappointing: the intensive treatment appeared to have no significant effect on all-cause mortality or on cardiovascular death. Add to that the dangerously low blood glucose levels the treatment entails, and there appears to be very little to recommend it. The benefits of such treatment, says ACSH s Dr. Ruth Kava, simply don t offset the risks.
