The biggest danger for diabetics isn’t high blood sugar

If you have type 2 diabetes, especially if you’ve been on drugs to control it for a long time now, here’s something you want to bring up with your doctor as soon as you can:

“De-intensification.”

And that’s especially true if you’re a little on the older side.

Because in a new study, the oldest Medicare recipients were the “least likely to benefit from tight glycemic control.” Plus that, they were also “the most likely to be harmed.”

Yet those are the patients who stand the greatest chance of being over-treated with meds… and “less likely to have their medication regimes de-intensified”!

What that means is it may be high time to cut back on your blood-sugar-lowering meds — maybe even ditch them entirely.

Not only could it keep you from taking a bad fall and possibly suffering a broken bone… it’s something that could just save your life.

Dialing back the drugs
If there’s anything that’s true about taking drugs, it’s that — with rare exceptions — you’re likely to be on them forever!

Of course, that may seem logical if you have diabetes, right? That’s a disease that makes these meds a big part of your everyday life.

But anytime you’re taking insulin or pills to lower your blood sugar, one of their scariest side effects is always lurking in the background — hypoglycemia — or blood sugar that’s too low.

It can strike without warning, leaving you feeling dizzy, shaky, and sweaty with a racing pulse.

For seniors, that threat looms larger than ever. And it should make a new study out of the University of Michigan required reading for anyone currently taking diabetes meds — especially those over 70.

These researchers found that older diabetics tend to be treated with the same amount of glucose-lowering drugs, whether their levels of a blood protein called hemoglobin A1C revealed high or low blood sugar!

Making this over-prescribing of drugs to control diabetes even more frightening is a new finding that came out, of all places, a study done by drugmaker Novo Nordisk while conducting a trial on one of its type 2 meds.

What was discovered is that even if you think you’ve recovered from a severe episode of hypoglycemia, your risk of dying is still four times higher over two weeks later. Yikes!

Yet, it’s also been found that those with diabetes — of all ages — are bullied and frightened into chasing unrealistic A1C numbers and being given more and more drugs in the process. As another study earlier this year disclosed, many of those drugs can have a worse effect on your heart than if your blood sugar is running high!

A diabetes expert from the Mayo Clinic calls our scant knowledge on that topic “a disgrace.”

While this is a major issue for all diabetics, the odds you’ll suffer a deadly dip in blood sugar go right up as you age. And senior diabetics seem to be getting the shortest end of the stick when it comes to being given the right advice.

So, the first thing you need to do is make sure you’re fully aware of the signs of hypoglycemia, which can start out with symptoms such as a fast pulse, hunger, pale skin, and sweating. As your blood sugar continues to plummet and the condition worsens, you may become confused and unable to do simple tasks, and your vision may start to blur.

You could even suffer a seizure!

So, don’t let anyone tell you that you’re just suffering a dizzy spell… or that older folks “tend to get confused” or “fall a lot.”

Next, it’s urgent that you make a doctor’s appointment to go over your A1C numbers and see exactly what’s going on.

Because even if you’ve been following your doctor’s advice for a very long time, this issue is far too important for you not to play an active role in.

“Time to dial back on diabetes treatment in older patients? Study finds 11 percent are overtreated” University of Michigan, September 15, 2017, ScienceDaily, sciencedaily.com