New Research on risks of blood sugars going too low in T2's

[Einstein]

From a team of researchers in Cardiff.

The conclussion in the article does however state the impact might have been impacted if the patients were elderly.

It also goes on to say that if you're worried about your BS levels you should discuss it with your healthcare team. Given the response of so many T2's here I wonder if most healthcare professionals would know what the target was if the lab didn't print the accepable range on the piece of paper with the results on?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8481770.stm

 

[Northerner]

I read this earlier. It's another case of who do you listen to? They talk of not letting your HbA1c go below 7.5%, but then other studies show that gives greater risk of complications. Suggesting that below 6.4% is dangerous is, erm, dangerous IMO!😱 I really despair sometimes at the way that statistics are presented almost as an inevitablity that 'this is what will happen to you'. In this case you know nothing about the previous levels of control for those put on insulin - it may have been really poor for a long time, hence the insulin, so the suggestion that insulin is somehow harmful to these people is spurious, or at the very least, speculative.

So stop trying to scare everyone you scientists unless your research shows a definite and unequivocal link - like cyanide will kill you.

 

[Einstein]

I read this earlier. It's another case of who do you listen to? They talk of not letting your HbA1c go below 7.5%, but then other studies show that gives greater risk of complications. Suggesting that below 6.4% is dangerous is, erm, dangerous IMO!😱 I really despair sometimes at the way that statistics are presented almost as an inevitablity that 'this is what will happen to you'. In this case you know nothing about the previous levels of control for those put on insulin - it may have been really poor for a long time, hence the insulin, so the suggestion that insulin is somehow harmful to these people is spurious, or at the very least, speculative.

So stop trying to scare everyone you scientists unless your research shows a definite and unequivocal link - like cyanide will kill you.

I thought one of the biggest omissions was the fact they didn't seem to know age related to the conditions, nor was any mention made of what they died of, or how long they'd been diagnosed or how long before diagnosis it was considered they'd been diabetic for.

Next we'll probably find 70% of them presented as diabetics with pre-existing complications 😱

It's really a meaningless study, I thought about posting it or not, then thought it actually highlights the plight of a lot of T2's with the information available and the knowledge or lack of it in general, but most worryingly that a lot of them receive from their health-care team.

I wonder how many of these 50,000 patients self monitored? How many were on one shot of Basal a day or an MDI regime? If they'd received any guidance on carb counting or just here's your pen, insulin and needles, now get on with it?

How many more questions are left unanswered?

Clearly some comprehensive research 🙄

 

[Dizzydi]

I'm not sure what to make of this!!

 

[AlisonM]

What a total waste of research funding! As was said on the other thread, there was no attempt to record the general state of health of the participants, or cause of death if they died, or any detail about how well their diabetes was controlled. A completely meaningless piece of crap in short.