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United Daily News / Compiled by Wang Lijuan / Reported
February 8, 2008, 08:02 AM
For decades, researchers believed that lowering blood sugar in diabetic patients could also reduce the risk of death from heart disease. However, a large-scale study by U.S. government health agencies found that strict blood sugar control actually increased mortality rates. Due to the unexpected results, this study, which involved tens of thousands of middle-aged and elderly patients with type 2 diabetes, was urgently halted.
Nevertheless, researchers advise that any patient considering changing their medication should consult a doctor. Currently, it remains unclear why strict blood sugar control leads to higher mortality.
The New York Times reported that the study, released on the 6th, found that the group with blood sugar lowered to normal levels had 54 more deaths than the group with less stringent blood sugar control. The participants in the study had been involved for an average of four years.
These findings do not mean that controlling blood sugar is meaningless. Lowering blood sugar can reduce complications such as kidney disease, blindness, and amputations in diabetic patients. However, the new discovery suggests that the traditional belief—that blood sugar should be lowered as much as possible or brought as close to normal levels as possible—may not be an absolute rule.
Medical experts were quite surprised by these results. Dr. Dove, president of the American College of Cardiology, said, "The new findings are unsettling and troubling. For 50 years, we have been emphasizing lowering blood sugar." Dr. Hirsch, a diabetes researcher at the University of Washington, stated that it is difficult to explain these findings to patients, many of whom have strictly followed dietary controls and medication regimens for years. Convincing them to relax their standards is challenging.
The American Diabetes Association is also expected to face a dilemma, as its guidelines still recommend that patients' blood sugar levels should be as close to normal as possible.
Diabetes is divided into congenital type 1 diabetes and adult-onset type 2 diabetes, with the latter accounting for 95% of all cases. Because the theory of lowering blood sugar is deeply ingrained, when the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases proposed this diabetes study in 1990, they did not anticipate such results.
Participants in the study had an average age of 62 and a diabetes history of 10 years. In addition to high blood sugar, these patients may also have conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.
The study was divided into three groups: blood sugar, cholesterol, and blood pressure. The blood sugar group's experiment has been stopped, while the other two continue. The blood sugar group was split into two control groups. The group with strict blood sugar control might receive insulin injections four to five times a day or check their blood sugar seven to eight times daily, sometimes combined with medication, to lower blood sugar as much as possible. Unexpectedly, their mortality rate was higher than that of the less strictly controlled group.
Researchers initially suspected that a specific drug or drug interactions might be responsible, but after careful analysis, this possibility was ruled out. Most deaths in both groups were due to heart disease, not other unusual causes. The reason behind this groundbreaking discovery remains to be further studied.
[2008/02/08 United Daily News] @ http://udn. com/
Source: http://mag. udn. com/ mag/ life/ storypage. jsp? f_ART_ID=110286
Diabetes Control Linked to Higher Mortality
February 8, 2008, 08:02 AM
For decades, researchers believed that lowering blood sugar in diabetic patients could also reduce the risk of death from heart disease. However, a large-scale study by U.S. government health agencies found that strict blood sugar control actually increased mortality rates. Due to the unexpected results, this study, which involved tens of thousands of middle-aged and elderly patients with type 2 diabetes, was urgently halted.
Nevertheless, researchers advise that any patient considering changing their medication should consult a doctor. Currently, it remains unclear why strict blood sugar control leads to higher mortality.
The New York Times reported that the study, released on the 6th, found that the group with blood sugar lowered to normal levels had 54 more deaths than the group with less stringent blood sugar control. The participants in the study had been involved for an average of four years.
These findings do not mean that controlling blood sugar is meaningless. Lowering blood sugar can reduce complications such as kidney disease, blindness, and amputations in diabetic patients. However, the new discovery suggests that the traditional belief—that blood sugar should be lowered as much as possible or brought as close to normal levels as possible—may not be an absolute rule.
Medical experts were quite surprised by these results. Dr. Dove, president of the American College of Cardiology, said, "The new findings are unsettling and troubling. For 50 years, we have been emphasizing lowering blood sugar." Dr. Hirsch, a diabetes researcher at the University of Washington, stated that it is difficult to explain these findings to patients, many of whom have strictly followed dietary controls and medication regimens for years. Convincing them to relax their standards is challenging.
The American Diabetes Association is also expected to face a dilemma, as its guidelines still recommend that patients' blood sugar levels should be as close to normal as possible.
Diabetes is divided into congenital type 1 diabetes and adult-onset type 2 diabetes, with the latter accounting for 95% of all cases. Because the theory of lowering blood sugar is deeply ingrained, when the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases proposed this diabetes study in 1990, they did not anticipate such results.
Participants in the study had an average age of 62 and a diabetes history of 10 years. In addition to high blood sugar, these patients may also have conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.
The study was divided into three groups: blood sugar, cholesterol, and blood pressure. The blood sugar group's experiment has been stopped, while the other two continue. The blood sugar group was split into two control groups. The group with strict blood sugar control might receive insulin injections four to five times a day or check their blood sugar seven to eight times daily, sometimes combined with medication, to lower blood sugar as much as possible. Unexpectedly, their mortality rate was higher than that of the less strictly controlled group.
Researchers initially suspected that a specific drug or drug interactions might be responsible, but after careful analysis, this possibility was ruled out. Most deaths in both groups were due to heart disease, not other unusual causes. The reason behind this groundbreaking discovery remains to be further studied.
[2008/02/08 United Daily News] @ http://udn. com/
Source: http://mag. udn. com/ mag/ life/ storypage. jsp? f_ART_ID=110286