Diabetes Treatment Options: May Hurt the Heart

A series of new studies have brought forth bad news for the estimated 21 million Americans who suffer from Type 2 diabetes. Doctors were desperately trying to find different kinds of diabetes treatments, but these studies have shown that not only are their efforts in vain, but they could actually be harmful to their patients.

Those who suffer from Type 2 diabetes have abnormally high blood sugar levels, because their body resists the hormone insulin. However, it is heart disease that takes the lives of many sufferers. Two years ago, a study by the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research at Colombia University, discovered that controlling blood sugar levels did not prevent heart disease, thus being an ineffective type of treatment for diabetes. Other factors, such as decreasing the patients blood pressure, were considered as alternative forms of diabetes treatment.

However, while experts like Dr. William C. Cushman of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Memphis praised the logic, a study published on 14 March 2010 by the New England Journal of Medicine (on their website www.nejm.org) showed that having lower blood pressure did not prevent heart attacks. In fact, patients with lower blood pressure were at risk from dangerous side effects from the medication taken, such as high potassium levels. The same study also showed that a drug type called a fibrate; was ineffective in helping lower the risk of heart disease which is caused by having a combination of low HDL cholesterol and a high level of triglycerides (a type of fat).