Insulin Use in Type 2 Diabetes Brings Higher Risk of Death

I’m starting this note with an admonishment to talk to your doctor before you do anything, especially even considering stopping use of insulin if you are already using it. Now, with that out of the way, here’s the meat from our source article.

Researchers in Wales at the Cardiff University, using data from over 84,000 patients with type 2 diabetes over the period of 2000 to 2010, compared 5 different treatments and the resulting “adverse effects, cancer, or death.”

It looks like those who took metformin by itself with no other drugs did better than those who took sulfonylurea drugs or insulin. Sulfonylurea drugs gave a 43.6 greater risk of an “initial adverse cardiac event or cancer, or death from any cause…”

But for those taking insulin alone, it was even worse:

… the risk was 80 percent higher and for insulin combined with metformin, the risk was 31 percent higher. Among those with no prior history of the events, insulin therapy was associated with nearly twice the risk of heart attack, a 73.6 percent higher risk of major adverse cardiac events, a 43.2 percent greater risk of stroke, a 43.7 greater risk of developing cancer, 3.5 times the risk of kidney complications, and more than twice the risk of neuropathy or dying from any cause in comparison with the risks experienced by those who used metformin.

If you want to give your doctor this information, it was published online on 31 January 2013 in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Source article: http://www.lef.org/newsletter/2013/0208_Insulin-Use-By-Diabetics-Associated-With-Greater-Risk-Of-Dying.htm