Tight Blood Sugar Control Helps Diabetics Long-Term

Sept. 11 -- WEDNESDAY, Sept. 10 (HealthDay News) -- Type 2 diabetics who tightly control their blood sugar levels early, even if only for the first 10 years after diagnosis, have reduced risk of heart attack, death and other complications a decade or more later, British researchers report.

The same cannot be said for type 2 diabetics who control their blood pressure for five years after diagnosis, however. The benefits from blood pressure control are only maintained as long as antihypertensive treatment is maintained, the same group of British researchers found.

"It is real encouraging to know that a prolonged period of good [blood sugar] control followed by a prolonged period of mediocre control, can still have good effect on our health," said Dr. Ping H. Wang, professor of medicine and director of the Center for Diabetes Research & Treatment at the University of California, Irvine.

"Humans are not perfect, it is quite often that diabetic patients go through periods of good control and not-so-good control," noted Wang, who was not involved in the studies. "Now, I can go back to my clinic and tell my patients that even though they are not perfect, the good control they have achieved will have long-lasting effect."

Both of the new studies were published in the Sept. 9 online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. The findings were also expected to be presented Wednesday at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, in Rome.

The trial, called The United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS), "showed continuing benefit of earlier improved glucose control," said lead researcher Rury Holman, a professor of diabetic medicine and director of the Diabetes Trials Unit at the University of Oxford.

For the first study, more than 4,200 patients with type 2 diabetes were randomly assigned to either a restricted diet aimed at improving blood sugar or to intensive blood sugar control with medicines such as insulin or metformin. The patients were followed for an average of about 10 years. Then, for 5 years after the trial ended, patients were asked to check in at clinics annually, but they were no longer mandated to follow any particular blood sugar-lowering treatment.