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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dillinger" data-source="post: 1221957" data-attributes="member: 13582">It's a sad situation isn't it? As a Type 1 I get the kit but not the information, I think it is worse for Type 2's as you don't get the kit or the information and in addition are told it's all your own fault.The 'your HbA1c is too low' is the most sinister thing though; I was told that many years ago when I had an HbA1c of 5.8% and then stupidly let it go up. I've never got back to that great position.The reason that HCPs say HbA1c is too low is down to the ACCORD study that showed that intensively medicated lowering of HbA1c increased all cause mortality in the Type 2 patients in the study. Therefore lowering your blood sugars = increased mortality risk.What they failed to state, or to think about, was that the drugs used to lower blood sugar (on average 3 different ones plus insulin) included Avandia, also known as rosiglitazone, which has since been suspended by UK and European drug watchdogs because of its propensity to cause heart attacks.But never mind that eh? It's the low HbA1c that's causing the problems...This sounds like conspiracy theory nonsense but alas it's true.Here's the full text of the ACCORD study and you'll see that 91% of participants were on rosiglitazone...<a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/nejmoa0802743" target="_blank">http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/nejmoa0802743</a>This insane bit of research doesn't seem to die and now we have this:<a href="http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/national-prescribing-centre-calls-for-minimum-hba1c-target/11033370.fullarticle" target="_blank">http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/national-prescribing-centre-calls-for-minimum-hba1c-target/11033370.fullarticle</a>That's a suggestion that the NHS has a minimum target for HbA1c even though we know from the study that informs how diabetes is treated in the UK the DCCT ( <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/gap/cgi-bin/GetPdf.cgi?id=phd000390" target="_blank">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/gap/cgi-bin/GetPdf.cgi?id=phd000390</a> ) that the lower your HbA1c the lower your risk of CVD. As I recall the escalation in risk starts at about 5.6% in old money.Could the new proposed target have anything to do with the annual failure of the NHS to get diabetics HbA1c below 6.5% ?For Type 1 the annual results sit at about 96% of Type 1's failing to get below that.  That's very bad. But why not use an idiotic study to justify moving the target marker up and then we hit the targets! Hurrah! Funding bonuses all around for our success in hitting targets, lots of drugs prescribed! Everyone's a winner. Apart from the dead diabetics but let's look at the big picture eh?If only there was a way to lower blood sugars without medication? You know like a dietary approach or something?BestDillinger</blockquote>

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