The National Institutes of Health stopped part of a 10,000 patient Type 2 diabetes study 18 months early due to increased deaths among a vulnerable portion of the study group.
The study's focal point was to establish if pushing blood sugar levels below the standard recommended target help protect patients that are at high risk of heart attack or stroke. Instead the study found that 257 patients that had been aggressively treated had died compared to 203 diabetics given standard care.
The death rate among participants was lower than the norm for Type 2 diabetics, possibly because of the extra care and monitoring, and the aggressively treated patients had approximately 10 percent fewer heart attacks.
"However, it appeared that if a heart attack did occur, it was more likely to be fatal" in that group," said Dr. William Friedewald of Columbia University. "In addition, the intensive treatment group had more unexpected sudden deaths, even without a clear heart attack."
The announcement does not change previous guideline for Type 2 diabetes control which never included a recommendation to attempt to achieve "near normal" glucose levels.
[Source: NIH]
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