xyzzy
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clairy clutterbuck said:Yes it has scared me to death reading all the posts on this topic. I had been concerned as I had read an article that said getting much below an HBA1C of 7 could be dodgy and my last one was 6.2, only to read that this is actually far too high - or is it? I noticed some of the comments were based on American measurements - are ours the same?
I finally got my HBA1C below 7 two years ago and have been in the 6's ever since, and developed backround diabetic retinopathy for the first time last year. The optician said it can be triggered with a sudden drop in sugars! GREAT!! I am eating a low carb diet (I think) of 70 to 80 carbs a day and have left work three weeks ago to make sure I get more exercise and eat "spot on" as much as possible but am now concerned this is not enough to lower my numbers. I have quite a bit of weight to lose and this is now gradually coming down. Will my numbers come down as I lose weight as a matter of course? and therefore I just need to continue with my plan and be patient? HELP.......
Claire x
Hi Claire
Yes there was a 2009 study done by researchers in the UK that concluded that risks began to rise again below 7%. It was conclusively trashed by a later Swedish study published mid 2011. They pointed out the UK study misinterpreted the results effectively because the sample of diabetics they choose had loads of insulin using obese diabetics who died prematurely of CVD (what a surprise given the NHS drug escalator approach!). If you adjusted the UK survey so that the sample wasn't weighted in that way but included a wider range of healthier diabetics the less than 7% finding completely vanished. Based on that later research the Swedish health service now encourages its diabetics to aim for an HbA1c as low as they can get and also for its diabetics to adopt a low to moderate carb diet i.e what most of us on the forum would promote.
What of course continues to be proved by the UK study is that insulin using obese diabetics have a far higher risk of dying young from CVD which is pretty obvious really when you think about it and is what the Swedes pointed out by saying the link to CVD is because of being obese and overweight and has little or nothing to do with HbA1c