Glucose Control May Not Reduce Kidney Failure In Type 2 Diabetes Patients

Aggressive glucose (glycemic) control may not reduce the risk of kidney failure in individuals with type-2 diabetes, according to Yale researchers.

The study is published in Archives of Internal Medicine.

In order to determine whether aggressive glucose control can prevent renal disease in individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus, Steven G. Coca, assistant professor in the section of nephrology in the Department of Internal Medicine at Yale, and his team examined data from 7 trials involving 28,065 adult patients.

According to the researchers findings, the risk of impaired kidney function, the need for dialysis or death from renal disease was not reduced among participants who received aggressive glucose control with higher doses of medication vs. patients who underwent usual treatment.

Coca notes that many researchers were under the assumption that intensive glucose control would protect the patients kidneys. However, results from this study raises the question of whether this approach actually benefits patients.

Coca explained:




"After pooling the results from the follow-up data in the seven studies examined, our analysis shows that intensive glycemic control may improve some things about the kidney that we measure, but did not affect patients' outcomes."