I’m not sure whether this is “real” or just a manifestation of pop/junk science, but it surprised me, and so I’ll pass it on.
From the New York Times:
[A] major federal study of more than 10,000 middle-aged and older people with Type 2 diabetes has found that lowering blood sugar actually increased their risk of death, researchers reported Wednesday.[...]
Among the study participants who were randomly assigned to get their blood sugar levels to nearly normal, there were 54 more deaths than in the group whose levels were less rigidly controlled. The patients were in the study for an average of four years when investigators called a halt to the intensive blood sugar lowering and put all of them on the less intense regimen.
The results do not mean blood sugar is meaningless. Lowered blood sugar can protect against kidney disease, blindness and amputations, but the findings inject an element of uncertainty into what has been dogma — that the lower the blood sugar the better and that lowering blood sugar levels to normal saves lives.
I’m disinclined to believe this is a junk science study, or at least a junk science news report, from some of the discussion further on in the article (if folks bother to actually read that far). Questions are raised as to whether the increased death rate is the result of interaction of meds, increased stress, a side effect of reducing blood sugar levels too quickly…or something else.
In other words, there is no easy answer….which is most often the case in the real world.