If anyone was getting depressed about the ACCORD results, they can take heart from another large study from Steno in Denmark, just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, in which lowering of the blood sugar and HbA1c levels resulted in an almost 50% fall in overall death rate,  particularly from heart disease.  Many fewer patients progressed to end-stage kidney failure or required laser treatment to their eyes. Major side effects were rare.

You can find the abstract at: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/358/6/580?query=TOC

Other large studies from both sides of the Atlantic have reported broadly similar results.

We’ll have to wait and see what comes out of the discussion of the ACCORD results, but it is clear that nobody should panic about this or change their treatments right now.

 TW

Tags: blood glucose control, complications, control, diabetes, glucose control, intensive control, Type2

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 17th, 2008 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Type 2, diabetes, glucose control, trials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.