Research

Hormonal

Intensive glycaemic control in type 2 diabetes does not reduce all-cause or cardiovascular mortality compared to conventional control, but significantly increases the risk of severe hypoglycaemia.

For Type 2 Diabetes, aggressively lowering blood sugar to very low targets (like <6.0%) does not extend life and significantly increases the risk of severe hypoglycaemia. Standard guidelines (HbA1c <7.0%) are generally safer and equally effective for mortality prevention compared to intensive targets.

GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
Intensive glycaemic control does not seem to reduce all cause mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes... Intensive glycaemic control increases the relative risk of severe hypoglycaemia by 30%.
Bianca Hemmingsen et al. · BMJ · 2011

Why this rating

Systematic review of 14 RCTs with 28,614 participants, though trial sequential analysis indicated insufficient evidence for some secondary outcomes.

Source

Intensive glycaemic control for patients with type 2 diabetes: systematic review with meta-analysis and trial sequential analysis of randomised clinical trials

Bianca Hemmingsen et al. · BMJ · 2011

DOI 10.1136/bmj.d6898

Meta-analysis · 14 studiesCited 391×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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