Strict Blood Sugar Lowering Wont Ease Diabetes ...( Blood pressure cholesterol control ma...),Health

Blood pressure, cholesterol control may be type 2 diabetics' best bet, researchers say

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 17 (HealthDay News) -- Intensive lowering of blood sugar in people with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes does not have a significant effect on reducing cardiovascular events, such as heart attack and stroke, a new study finds.

"You can decrease cardiovascular events in patients with type 2 diabetes by good treatment of lipids [cholesterol], blood pressure and other cardiovascular risk factors," noted lead researcher Dr. William Duckworth, from the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care Center in Arizona. "But among older patients whose risk factors are controlled, intensive glucose control does not add any significant benefit," he said.

That runs counter to the conventional wisdom on the issue, which holds that intensive lowering of blood sugar should reduce cardiovascular events.

"But it's never been proven," Duckworth said. And given the findings of the new study, "time and money may be better expended by doing more work on lipids, blood pressure, diet and exercise," he added.

The report was published in the Dec. 17 online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

For the study, called the Veterans Affairs Diabetes Trial (VADT), Duckworth's team randomly assigned almost 1,800 patients averaging 60 years of age to intensive blood sugar control or to standard blood sugar control. All of the patients had experienced suboptimal responses to treatment for type 2 diabetes.

During 5.6 years of follow-up, 264 of the patients receiving standard blood sugar control experienced a heart attack or stroke, died from heart disease, developed heart failure, had surgery for heart disease or had an amputation made necessary by poor circulation.

But so did 235 of the patients who received intensive blood sugar control.

Moreover, there was no difference between the grou
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