The last sentence of the article by Landman et al1 states, ‘for patients with moderate glycaemic control and longstanding diabetes, it may be better to focus on other risk factors, such as smoking, high blood pressure, and lipid profile disturbances, than to aim for increasingly lower therapeutic values for HbA1c’.
However, this observational cohort study showed no significant difference in baseline characteristics between the survivors and the deceased in blood pressure, lipids, and smoking characteristics.
Surely an implication of this study is that the benefits of interventions noted in other studies do not necessarily translate to improvements in the wider context of general practice.
REFERENCE
- 1.Landman GW, van Hateren KJJ, Kleefstra N, et al. The relationship between glycaemic control and mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes in general practice (Zodiac-11) Br J Gen Pract. 2010;60(572):172–175. doi: 10.3399/bjgp10X483517. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]