Research

Hormonal

Intensive glycaemic control reduces the risk of non-fatal myocardial infarction and microvascular complications (retinopathy, composite microvascular outcomes), but the evidence is currently insufficient to confirm these benefits definitively.

While tighter blood sugar control may slightly reduce the risk of heart attacks and eye/kidney damage, current evidence is not strong enough to guarantee these benefits. The risk of dangerous low blood sugar events remains a significant concern.

ModerateQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
The risk of non-fatal myocardial infarction may be reduced... but this finding was not confirmed in trial sequential analysis. Intensive glycaemic control showed a reduction of the relative risks for the composite microvascular outcome... and retinopathy... but trial sequential analyses showed that sufficient evidence had not yet been reached.
Bianca Hemmingsen et al. · BMJ · 2011

Why this rating

Statistically significant in meta-analysis but failed trial sequential analysis for sufficient evidence.

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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