Research

Hormonal

Intensive glucose control provides minor cardiovascular benefits compared to lipid-lowering and anti-hypertensive therapies, and targeting very low glycemia may increase mortality risk in certain subgroups.

Do not rely solely on lowering your blood sugar to protect your heart. Managing your blood pressure and cholesterol levels, along with quitting smoking, offers significantly greater protection against cardiovascular disease than intensive glucose control alone. Discuss individualized HbA1c targets with your doctor, as overly aggressive lowering may be harmful for some.

GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
We know now that benefits of such policy are minor in terms of vascular benefit, especially when compared with the much larger benefits stemming from lipid-lowering and anti-hypertensive therapy. In addition, aiming for very low glycemia target in some subgroups... may even be associated with an increase in mortality risk.
Naveed Sattar · F1000Prime Reports · 2014

Why this rating

Based on multiple large-scale randomized controlled trials (Look AHEAD, ORIGIN, SAVOR, ADVANCE) cited in the review.

Source

Advances in managing type 2 diabetes: challenging old paradigms and developing new ones

Naveed Sattar · F1000Prime Reports · 2014

DOI 10.12703/p6-42

narrative_reviewCited 9×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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