Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Some Advice on Diabetes Proves Risky

From the NYTimes:
"For decades, researchers believed that if people with diabetes lowered their blood sugar to normal levels, they would no longer be at high risk of dying from heart disease. But a major federal study of more than 10,000 middle-aged and older people with Type 2 diabetes has found that lowering blood sugar actually increased their risk of death, researchers reported Wednesday.

The researchers announced that they were abruptly halting that part of the study, whose surprising results call into question how the disease, which affects 21 million Americans, should be managed."

Good grief! If you work really hard at controlling blood sugar, you may be risking your life! What to do?

It's important to know that insulin and pills were used to bring the blood sugar down in this study. But it is unclear whether the drugs were what caused the deaths.

Here's the Reuters version of the story: Just how low should blood sugar go?

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