Posted on 10/20/2012 10:35:47 AM PDT by Innovative
A large federal study of whether diet and weight loss can prevent heart attacks and strokes in overweight and obese people with Type 2 diabetes has ended two years ahead of schedule because the intensive program did not help.
About 25 million Americans have Type 2 diabetes. Many are overweight or obese. On average, the disease increases heart disease risk by 2 to 2 1/2 times, said Dr. Ronald Kahn, chief academic officer at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston.
Dr. Nathan, though, said the results meant that people with diabetes might have a choice. The group assigned to diet and exercise ended up with about the same levels of cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar as those in the control group, but the dieters used fewer medications.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
In my personal opinion medical science today still doesn't know the original cause of diabetes and have a lot of misconceptions.
Another interesting study:
Heart failure patients with diabetes may benefit from higher glucose levels
http://www.uclahealth.org/body.cfmid=561&action=detail&ref=1880
“The researchers found that for the diabetic heart failure patients, two-year event-free survival was highest among patients with the highest elevated glycosylated hemoglobin levels: a 65 percent survival rate for patients with Level 4 (greater than 8.6 percent of the marker) and a 61 percent survival rate for those with Level 3 (7.3 - 8.5 percent of the marker).
Patients with lower levels of the marker had worse survival rates: a 48 percent survival rate for patients with Level 1 (less than 6.4 percent of the marker) and a 42 percent survival rate for those with Level 2 (6.5 - 7.2 percent of the marker).
According to the researchers, the ideal level of glycosylated hemoglobin in heart failure patients with diabetes appears to be in the 8.3 - 8.9 percent range. Current national treatment targets aim much lower, at 7 percent.”
If I recall correctly, you have a health/diabetes ping list...
At least some overweight people with Type 2 diabetes have their blood sugars return to normal if they lose weight.It happened to me.I was told to lose 30 pounds and did so.Once that weight was gone I was taken off my diabetes medication *and* I was taken off all but one of my blood pressure meds and the one that wasn't discontinued was reduced to the lowest recommended dose.I asked my doctor about it and he said that it was very common to see those results after a noteworthy weight loss.
More:
“Published online in the American Journal of Cardiology, the study by UCLA researchers compared levels of glycosylated hemoglobin, a marker used to track glucose levels, in advanced heart failure patients with and without diabetes. The marker is gauged through a simple blood test.
The study assessed the relationship between levels of the marker and mortality outcomes. Researchers found that among heart failure patients with diabetes, there was a 15 percent decrease in mortality for every unit increase in the marker.”
So my laziness is paying off!
Oh but they didn’t consult Doctor Mooshell!
She has all the dietary answers. What a waste of time. They could have made an appointment with her, and saved themselves all that trouble.
Just another example of government waste.
Paging Doctor Mooshell, Doctor Mooshell please pick up the pinko courtesy phone.
Good for you.
But I know people who lost 100 lbs and didn’t make a darn bit of difference in their diabetes, cholesterol and blood pressure.
I think genetics is more important than lifestyle.
They should study people who don’t get these diseases despite their “unhealthy” lifestyles.
Also knew people who were thin, exercised, ate healthy and died of a heart attack when middle-aged.
Did the study mention whether the lower A1C levels were achieved using higher dosages of insulin? Higher insulin levels have been linked to higher heart disease risks. It’s way more complicated than just sugar level alone.
What sort of ‘diet’ were the dieters on?
The article indicates that people with type 2 diabetes have a 2 to 2.5 times likelihood of having a cardiac event. This is typically misleading. In the big scheme of things, the increase of risk may be from 2% to 4 or 5% which provides a little bit better perspective.
They put these people on starvation diets which they did NOT maintain and their weight loss was negligible.
Some study!
I’ve heard that people who weigh 700+ pounds rarely die of heart disease because they have to have genes that make them immune to heart attacks in the first place to get that fat without dying. Could be seeing a similar effect here.
Was it a low fat diet or a low sugar diet? There is a difference. One works and one does not.
“It’s way more complicated than just sugar level alone.”
I agree. Insulin and many medications that are given to lower blood sugar are listed as potentially causing heart failure.
People get diabetes — take meds causing heart failure — then they have heart failure and continue to take the same meds which aggravate it — the more meds they take, the more their blood sugar is lowered, but the larger amounts of meds are what is causing a higher level or mortality.
I agree with you about genetics. I knew a woman who was in her 70's, she was thin, and exercised and the only meat she ate was boneless, skinless chicken breasts. She had high cholesterol numbers, and last I talked to her, her doctor had put her on two cholesterol medicines because just one wasn't helping with her cholesterol numbers. There I sat, overweight, my exercise routine was walking around the mall a couple of times, and I am a Atkins type of person. My bp and cholesterol are both just fine.
300 lb. individuals lost an average of 15 pounds? And the now trim, fit 285 pound individuals saw no significant effect on the incidence of heart attacks and strokes? Somehow, I am not shocked to learn this.
I recall several years ago that a major state university released a study that broccoli was good for you.
That state university's ag department has several thousand acres of crops under cultivation. Care to guess what one of their major crops was?
“I think genetics is more important than lifestyle.”
***
High cholesterol runs on both sides of my family. I can control mine somewhat, but I’ve accepted the fact that no matter what I do, I will never have normal cholesterol. I doubt too many people with a similar family history will either.
I think if anything we find that a one-size-fits-all mentality in medicine is what leads to ineffective (wasteful, unnecessary, sometimes harmful) treatment for many, many people.
Simply because not everyone’s bodies run at the same levels as others.
Look at the freaking eskimos. Cholesterol through the roof. they live well into old age. Environment and lifestyle and genetics and exposure to various other bacteria/virii all play a part and one-size-fits-all just don’t work.
The top pharma guys have admitted in interviews the most popular drugs work in only roughly half the people that take them, doesn’t do anything positive for the rest. They know this from their own studies.
Vaccines. Don’t get me started. The mega study that looked at over 20 studies across 50 years of the flu shot just showed that the shot only decreased chances of getting the flu by 4%. How effing great is that? It also destroyed the whole herd immunity bs argument as well.
Hell they can’t even figure out if eggs are good for you or not. they were, then they weren’t, then they were again.
The extra stress and unnecessary pressure the “medical experts” have put regular folks through, is enormous. Iatrogenic deaths in America are in the hundreds of thousands a year. Someone may be listed as having a heart attack asa cause of death, but what about the cause of the cause - like arterial calcification from statins, or the negative interactions of multiple medicines in the body (not yet discovered, maybe never)?
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