Dr. Mercola February 28 2008 62,661 views
The U.S. government abruptly halted aggressive treatment in a major study of diabetes and heart disease after a surprising number of deaths occurred among patients who pushed their blood sugar to very low levels.
The 10,000-patient ACCORD was designed to investigate whether lowering blood sugar levels to below the current recommended target would help protect patients at high-risk of heart attack.
However, the study was halted 18 months early, following 257 deaths among aggressively treated patients, compared to only 203 among diabetics given more standard care. Although aggressively treated patients were actually less likely to suffer heart attacks, any heart attacks they did suffer were more likely to be fatal.
A close look at the multiple medications patients used, including the drug Avandia that is suspected of being a heart risk, showed no sign that any were to blame.
One concept that I strive to make well-known, which has the potential to save hundreds of thousands and even millions of lives, is that diabetes is not a disease of blood sugar.
Rather, it is a disease of insulin – of insulin resistance -- and perhaps more importantly, of faulty leptin signaling.
Until that concept becomes well-known in both the medical community and by the public at large, this misconception will continue to be promoted in studies such as the one above, revealing the inadequacy of current conventional medical treatment for chronic diseases such as diabetes, and their erroneous advice about nutrition.
Typically, conventional treatment is focused on fixing a symptom, in this case elevated blood sugar, rather than the underlying disease. Symptoms are generally the way that nature has taught our bodies to deal with a disease – the real underlying biological or physiological problem.
Similarly, treatments that concentrate merely on lowering blood sugar for diabetes while raising insulin levels, can actually worsen rather than remedy the actual problem of metabolic miscommunication. It just trades one evil for another.
Why the Result of This Study is NOT Surprising
Since most treatments for type 2 diabetes utilize drugs that either raise insulin or lower blood sugar, the tragic result is that the typical, conventional medical treatment for diabetes contributes to the side effects and the shortened lifespan that diabetics experience.
This is what happened in this study as well. Their press release states:
“Most participants in the intensive treatment group achieved their lower blood sugar goals with combinations of Food and Drug Administration-approved diabetes medications. For both the intensive and standard treatment groups, study clinicians could use all major classes of diabetes medications available: metformin, thiazolidinediones (TZDs, primarily rosiglitazone), insulins, sulfonylureas, exanatide, and acarbose.”
Now, why don’t drugs like Actos and Avandia work? Actually, let me rephrase: why do they work so well at lowering blood sugar, yet lead to dramatically reduced health?
It’s because these drugs are what is called “PPAR-gamma agonists.” That means they activate PPAR-gamma receptors, which induces a particular response. PPAR-gamma is a nuclear receptor designed to multiply fat cells. So, the way these drugs work to lower your blood sugar is by multiplying your fat cells at a faster rate – hence making you gain weight at a more rapid pace.
Have you ever had too much junk in your garage and decided to rent a storage space rather than get rid of the excess?
That’s what you’re doing when you take these drugs. You’re consuming too much sugar – which turns into fat, and needs to be stored somewhere -- but instead of reducing your consumption, you’re simply adding storage space.
Sooner or later, those fat cells become resistant to insulin as well, and you’re back to where you started – your sugars start rising again because your body has once again run out of storage space. The conventional answer is to increase your dosages, and voila! – you’re well on your way to even more serious health problems, courtesy of your excess weight and continued metabolic malfunction.
Do You REALLY Know What Insulin Does?
Contrary to what you may have been told, insulin's main role is not to “control” blood sugar.
When blood sugar becomes elevated it is a signal for insulin to be released to direct the extra energy into storage. A small amount is stored as a starch called glycogen in our body, but the majority is stored as your main energy supply -- fat. Thus, in this regard insulin's major role is not to lower sugar, but to take the extra energy and store it for future times of need.
Insulin lowers glucose as a side effect of directing the extra energy into storage.
But, Wait… Insulin is Not the MOST Important Player in Diabetes
That honor actually goes to leptin, because the hormone leptin is largely responsible for the accuracy of insulin signaling, and whether you become insulin resistant or not.
Leptin is produced by fat, and tells your body:
There is compelling research indicating that the two most important organs that determine whether you become diabetic or not are your liver and your brain. And, it is their ability to listen to leptin that will determine this.
So, how do you make sure your brain and liver can hear the signals emanating from your leptin hormone, and don’t start to tune them out?
If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try Reading the Directions
This fast age seem more concerned about speed than direction, with devastating results. By some estimates, diabetes has increased more than 700 percent in the last 50 years. What does this tell us about the direction we’ve been following?
That “something” is diet.
It is difficult, or perhaps even impossible, to actually prove that something is true. However, it is not difficult to prove that something is false. For the last 50 years or so, Americans have followed the dietary recommendations of a high complex carbohydrate, low saturated fat diet.
As an example, WebMD; one of the most visited medical information sites on the web, states that people with diabetes, who also have abnormal cholesterol levels, would be well advised to follow a diet that calls for 50 to 60 percent of your daily total calories to be in the form of carbohydrates.
They also state that table sugar is okay, as long as you readjust your medications to compensate appropriately (i.e. take more drugs to increase your fat cell storage capacity). Using artificial sweeteners in lieu of sugar also gets the green light, but I won’t rant about that here.
While much of their advice is fine, and tries to remain well-balanced, the problem with these conventional recommendations lies in the details. Concomitant with that standard recommendation the incidence of diabetes and obesity has skyrocketed, and has become one of the worst epidemics the world has ever seen.
Eating a high "complex" carbohydrate, low saturated fat diet for health and longevity has been shown to be wrong. Minimal common sense would say to try something else.
What’s the Missing Dietary Link?
That would be an eating plan that emphasizes good fats and reduced non-fiber carbohydrates and starches as outlined in my Total Health Program. Doing so will greatly improve and even reverse type 2 "insulin resistant" diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, many other chronic diseases of aging, all without the use of potentially dangerous drugs.
"So for now, the NIH's message: Diabetics with heart disease shouldn't strive for near-normal glucose, but to a level long described as optimal for all diabetics — around 7 on a measurement scale known as the A1C." A1C of 7 = 150 average blood sugar. With diet, exercise, stress reduction and improved sleep, most diabetics I see can get their A1C down to at least 6 (120 average) if not lower depending on how dedicated they are to lifestyle changes. And this can be done without any prescription drugs. When are malpractice suits going to be started against physicians who do not educate their patients in lifestyle changes and only push dangerous drugs? Remember, even if you can reduce the blood sugar with drugs, you may live today from controlling blood sugar, but die tomorrow from high insulin levels. How about some malpractice suits for doctors who do not monitor insulin levels and offer no advice on how to reduce insulin resistance?
Patty---You are so right about insurance often not paying for insulin levels. And the test is more expensive--likely because it is not run very often. The only time MD's will run insulin levels is if you have already gone over the waterfall and are diabetic. They then need to know whether you are Type I or type II---so they know what drug to give you. It is sad that Registered Dieticians are so ignorant about nutrition. Unfortunately, it seems that the nutrition they are taught comes from the Church of Holy Medicine and they do not question their education any more than medical physicians usually question their education. It is often a lonely road overcoming diabetes or other degenerative diseases when one does it without following traditional medical advice. Much negativity is often given by well meaning people when you do not follow what the Priests of Holy Medicine say we should do. ( No personal offense is intended, what-so-ever with my "Holy Medicine" comments. Faith has its place in religion--not in science).
I was fortunate in my path to recovery as I simply told no one I was diabetic until I had significantly reversed it. That way I didn't get anybody's unasked for advice to follow the path of death and destruction that Registered Dieticians and Medical Physicians would have pushed me down.
Russ, I know what you mean about Fructose; I mistakenly used that for a while, a few years ago, when I was trying to reduce sugar in my family's diet. I heard that diabetics were baking cakes with it, etc., believing it to be a totally safe alternative to sucrose. I was shocked when I realised the truth.
I am not diabetic - I have that checked regularly - but it's in the family.
By the way, I think the term 'sugar diabetes' used to be used to distinguish it from 'bronze diabetes', which is a fairly rare condition caused by haemochromotosis - the excessive storage of iron in the vital organs, damaging the pancreas and eventually tinting the skin.
Lawsuits?....OK, but don't be too surprised if the lawyer ends up with most of the money thanks to a popular trend called: "collusion." It's probably better to avoid both doctors and lawyers these days.
I was bothered by that as well.
It would be so much better if they would just control their diet.
ONLY 203 deaths in 18 MONTHS !!
That not only 'bothers' me, that should be a crime !! Withholding information (like Dr Mercola's and other wise physicians) that resulted in the deaths of 203 people should qualify as a punishable offense !! You think ??
Yes, New to Natural, it's a kick in the guts.
What Else, it is not 203 deaths in 18 months. They halted the study 18 months early, it says. I found it remis that the article failed to tell us for how long the study was planned to run. If it was a three-year study stopped halfway through, that's very different from a ten-year study stopped before the end. And it would also tell us how long it took for those 460 people to die.
To grovedc: I totally agree. Eating as close to Nature as possible is a good basic rule...I try to eat something raw every day, and it is best if it's more than one thing. Laughing until the tears run is a wonderful feeling that lasts!
In reference to getting numbers down naturally. I know from experience it is possible. I took over my mothers care and they said she had 130. They wanted to put her on pills. I said no and changed her diet aggressively by doin all the shopping and cooking instead of leaving her to her own devices at nearly 80. A short walk to the mailbox at only a quarter mile and back a little uphill, and taking her off all of the other pills my sister-in-law had her on. With investigation, of course, to make sure they weren't absolutely needed, they weren't. Went back for a regular checkup and low and behold a 95 appeared the doctor had a funny look on his face and we left, no precriptions. She lived another few years with a clearer mind and more energy than she did have before for several years. My sister-in-law insisted she had alzheimers but I think she just had a pill fog.
I have to talk to people with diabetes all day long (I work in call center for a manufacturer of blood testing equipment), and I can't say a THING to them about what they are doing. There are about, maybe 2% who are taking control of their own health and living without drugs, and of the other 98% who are taking medication or insulin, they just really believe that diabetes is a disease that they somehow caught, and now the doctors are fixing it. They talk about possibly being put on insulin or having an increase in meds as if it's something that might happen if the current drugs they are taking don't work. Most of them are very aware that their own habits have SOMETHING to do with it, but they still leave it largely up to the doctors. Then when it doesn't work, they think there must be something wrong with the measuring devices. Poor souls. But.... I can't give medical advice. All I can say when they ask me for advice that is beyond my training is, "Talk to your doctor." I feel like a murderer sometimes. :(
Sharshur, what a horribly depressing situation for you! Here's a fantasy that might help: plan a new career and, only when you're ready to leave that job, bring a stack of useful information to work and give a copy to all patients as they leave. Until you get caught and sent home, at least you'll have helped some of the sufferers heal themselves.
As a nurse, I too cannot give medical advice. But I can tell people that they may want to go to this website and do a search. I explain how helpful it has been to me. At least this way I am leading the horse to water....what they do after that is totally up to them. It gives me great pleasure when someone 'discovers' the many natural ways to a healthier life. JoAnn