[FocusNexus]

Ping — I think you have a health and/or diabetes ping list.

[FocusNexus]

Related article:

Intensive Glycemic Control Fails to Prevent Most Microvascular Complications

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Endocrinology/Diabetes/12210

Keeping a tight rein on blood glucose in type 2 diabetes patients did nothing to prevent retinopathy, nephropathy, or neuropathy in the closely watched VA Diabetes Trial, researchers here said.

With a median of 5.6 years of follow-up, rates of microvascular complications did not differ significantly between diabetic veterans who received standard care and those randomized to a regimen of tight glycemic control, reported William Duckworth, M.D., of the Phoenix VA Health Care Center and colleagues online in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Median levels of glycated hemoglobin reached in the trial were 8.4% with standard therapy and 6.9% in the intensive treatment group.

As Dr. Duckworth had reported at the American Diabetes Association meeting earlier this year, cardiovascular outcomes also did not differ between the groups. (See: ADA: VA Diabetes Trial Appears to Vindicate Rosiglitazone (Avandia) Safety)

“Overall, the benefit of decreasing the glycated hemoglobin level from 8.4% to 6.9% appeared to be minimal,” the researchers said in their NEJM report.

[Gator113]

“.....intensive glucose control does not add any significant benefit,” he said.”

So as I understand this, I have been denying myself apple pie for nothing.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

The study reminds me of a scene from Flaubert's Madame Bovary, where the protagonist has eaten arsenic, and the druggist and his friend have administered an emetic in an effort to save her life:

After this she began to scream horribly. She cursed the poison, railed at it, and implored it to be quick, and thrust away with her stiffened arms everything that Charles, in more agony than herself, tried to make her drink. He stood up, his handkerchief to his lips, with a rattling sound in his throat, weeping, and choked by sobs that shook his whole body. Félicité was running hither and thither in the room. Homais, motionless, uttered great sighs; and Monsieur Canivet, always retaining his self-command, nevertheless began to feel uneasy.

"The devil! yet she has been purged, and from the moment that the cause ceases -- "

"The effect must cease," said Homais, "that is evident."

[Happy Rain]

But what about kidney failure?

I’m about to go on both high blood pressure and T2 diabetes medication.I loath taking pills,even aspirin.

So this sounds good to me.

[bmwcyle]

ping

[Yaelle]

Lifestyle changes have dramatic effect though. Did anyone see the recent Biggest Loser finale? They had the sickest man, in his 50s but looked 100, on there, and he had every kind of health problem, was taking every kind of pill. At the finale, he got a Standing O for losing the weight (he was not one of the winners at all) and working out and eating right: the Century City doc came on and was wiping away tears at the amazing turnaround at the man’s medical testing. He’s fit and healthy today, no meds. He’s a cop, too.

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

Ping

[apocalypto]

ping for later read.

[jwilde]

Here is some helpful information on Blood Sugar and the ravages of glycation, particularly in the context of aging:

http://www.terraternal.com/CategoryAbout.aspx?cid=14

The news story opening this thread finds that:

“older patients whose risk factors are controlled, intensive glucose control does not add any significant benefit,” he said.”

This seems to me to be missing the point. In older patients who have Diabetes, glycation, which is the ultimate cause of so many of the symptoms of Diabetes, has run its course already. Glycation is irreversible, and so it should not be surprising that lowering blood sugar late in life does not reduce the cardiovascular risk associated with Diabetes. But in the effort to prevent glycation, low blood sugar is everything.