Exogenous insulin increased risk for complications, mortality in type 2 diabetes

[Northerner]

According to results of a retrospective cohort study, exogenous insulin therapy was associated with an increased risk for diabetes-related complications, cancer and all-cause mortality among patients with type 2 diabetes.

Using data from the UK General Practice Research Database, 2000-2010, researchers from Cardiff University and the University Hospital of Wales in the United Kingdom compared outcomes among 84,622 patients with type 2 diabetes assigned to one of five glucose-lowering therapies: metformin monotherapy; sulfonylurea monotherapy; insulin monotherapy; metformin plus sulfonylurea; and insulin plus metformin.

The primary endpoint was risk for the first major adverse cardiac event, first cancer or mortality. Secondary endpoints included any of the individual primary endpoints plus microvascular complications.

http://www.healio.com/endocrinology...or-complications-mortality-in-type-2-diabetes

 

[Northerner]

Another Dangerously Misinterpreted Study

A huge, long-term UK study appears to show that for people with Type 2 Diabetes injecting insulin raises the risk of both cancer and heart disease.

The study is:

Mortality and Other Important Diabetes-Related Outcomes With Insulin vs Other Antihyperglycemic Therapies in Type 2 Diabetes
Craig J. Currie et al. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism February 1, 2013 vol. 98 no. 2 668-677

The study examined the records of 84,622 people with Type 2 Diabetes treated with 5 different drug combinations. It concludes: " In people with T2DM, exogenous insulin therapy was associated with an increased risk of diabetes-related complications, cancer, and all-cause mortality."

This conclusion is likely to lead insurance companies and physicians to deny insulin to people with Type 2 diabetes. This is tragic and very ill advised.

That is because what this study shows is a correlation between insulin use and heart disease and cancer, not causation. In fact, these results are easily explained when you understand that insulin use in people with Type 2 Diabetes in UK is a marker for long-term exposure to very high, uncontrolled blood sugars, and conclude that it is the high blood sugars, not the insulin causing the increase in mortality.

http://diabetesupdate.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/another-dangerously-misinterpreted.html