DOCTORS ARE SHOCKED BY ACCORD DIABETES STUDY RESULTS OF VERY TIGHT BLOOD SUGAR CONTROL AND THEY HALT PART OF DIABETES STUDY

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Doctors are perplexed by the results of a medical trial to improve the health of people with type 2 diabetes. Diabetes complications come from high blood sugars. Lowering blood sugars is one of the mantras of diabetes care. It seems to work. So doctors figured if lowering blood sugar some what helps than how about lowering blood sugar even more. The lower the better right? Now the shocking results of a diabetes study have opened the question is there such a thing as too low. In the ACCORD medical study to lower diabetes complications doctors employed a medical strategy to intensively lower blood glucose (sugar) below current recommendations. In a shocking development that is hard to explain, "the medical strategy to intensively lower blood glucose (sugar) below current recommendations increased the risk of death compared with a less-intensive standard treatment strategy. "People with diabetes should never adjust their treatment plan or goals without consulting their health care providers."




"The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health has stopped one treatment within a large, ongoing North American clinical trial of diabetes and cardiovascular disease 18 months early due to safety concerns after review of available data, although the study will continue.

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The intensive treatment group had a target blood sugar goal, measured by hemoglobin A1C, of less than 6 percent.This is similar to blood sugar levels in adults without diabetes. Hemoglobin A1C or glycosylated hemoglobin is a measure of blood sugars over several months. When sugar is high in the blood a lot it sticks to the red blood cells and can be measured in the hemoglobin A1C. So the hemoglobin A1C test is better than just a random blood sugar to get an idea of long term blood sugar. The standard treatment group in the ACCORD Study aimed for a target similar to what is achieved, on average, by those with diabetes in the United States (A1C of 7 to 7.9 percent) and lower than at study entry.

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"It’s confusing and disturbing that this happened,” said Dr. James Dove, president of the American College of Cardiology. “For 50 years, we’ve talked about getting blood sugar very low. Everything in the literature would suggest this is the right thing to do,” he added." People with diabetes should never adjust their treatment plan or goals without consulting their health care providers.



"The ACCORD findings are important, but will not change therapy for most patients with type 2 diabetes. Few patients with high cardiovascular risk like those studied in ACCORD are treated to blood sugar levels as low as those tested in this study, " said Judith Fradkin, M.D., director, Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Metabolic Diseases at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)."People with diabetes should never adjust their treatment plan or goals without consulting their health care providers."

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