Deaths Force NHLBI to Abandon Intensive Glucose- Lowering as Cardiovascular Strategy

BETHESDA, Md., Feb. 6 -- The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has halted the intensive glucose-lowering arm of the ACCORD trial, a cardiovascular-endpoint study of type 2 diabetes.

ACCORD was designed to evaluate the impact of different glucose and lipid-lowering strategies on cardiovascular events in more than 10,251 participants with type 2 diabetes.

According to a press release, there have been 257 deaths in the intensive-treatment group and 203 in the standard treatment group, which is an excess of 54 deaths, or three per 1,000 participants each year, over an average of fours years of treatment./.../