I read a study this AM reporting about the effects of keeping low sugar control in Type II diabetics. The findings may surprise you. The researchers found that keeping good control, or tight control, of your blood sugar may reduce the rate of heart attack, but not the rate of stroke or over all death. Patients also had 2x the frequency of hypoglycemic episodes and had more weight gain.
These findings were the result of a meta-analysis performed on 5 prospective studies. The studies involved over 33,000 patients. Associated findings were that reducing serum cholesterol or reducing you blood pressure is more beneficial than reducing your blood sugar.
What does this mean? At most, this is more proof that diabetes mellitus is a very complex disease. While the findings are counter-intuitive (I would think that lowering blood sugar would be beneficial across the board.), it is important to note that these were not results of a randomized, prospective trial. These are suggestions of associations at this point and we should remember this very fact. This is similar to the “findings” regarding diet and macular degeneration. Much of these findings are really just preliminary and yet to be proven.
Randy
Randall V. Wong, M.D.
Ophthalmologist/ Retina Specialist
www.TotalRetina.com
