What recent advancements have been made in the field of diabetes through the usage of blood-sugar studies?
A recent study completely turned on its head what doctors thought they knew about controlling diabetes. In the study of 10,000 middle aged Type 2 diabetes sufferers, results showed that reducing blood sugar levels through dietary control actually increases the risk of death. This is very disturbing to doctors who have long prescribed low-sugar diets as a way to manage the disease and prevent death. In fact, the stated goals of the study were to determine how many lives can be saved through blood sugar control. They ended the study early—after only 4 years rather than the planned 10—because so many more deaths had occurred in the group with tight diet restrictions. They couldn’t ethically continue the study, because it was already apparent that the diet that they thought would help was actually (somehow) leading to more deaths. Researchers still don’t know what mechanism in the body causes these low-sugar diets to lead to a higher risk of death. One (somewhat far out) theory is that
