Therapy not Avandia said to blame for trial deaths
The popular diabetes drug Avandia did not cause higher rates of death in a study testing ways to prevent heart problems in high-risk diabetics, researchers said on Wednesday, who instead blamed overly aggressive therapy
They said high-risk patients with type-2 diabetes who got intensive treatment to bring their blood sugar or glucose down to normal died at a higher rate than patients allowed higher blood sugar levels
The researchers said they would adjust the trial, called ACCORD, so the blood sugar of patients would not be lowered so much
The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which funded and helped organize the trial, stressed that all the patients in the study were less likely to die than similar type-2 diabetics in the general population
Patients in one group were given aggressive treatment to lower their blood sugar levels -- a measure known as hemoglobin A1c -- to below 6
far below the current target of under 7
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