Another diabetic sent it to me…
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-diabetes-overtreatment/
Not enough information in the article to make a sensible comment.
- What insulins was he using.
- What other meds.
- Did he have a CGM?
- Did he drink alcoholic beverages?
- Had he received competent education on his condition?
My HbA1c is under 7 even now on prednisone. It’s generally 5.4 to 6.5%. I seldom have moderate hypos generally when sleeping or out on the bike. I’m hypo aware but even if I were hypo unaware, I see my BG on my watch, my pump and phone will alert.
The other day I my watch alerted, my BG was 100mg/dl but with double arrows down. I was driving, ate 16g glucose which brought me to 105 no trend arrow.
In my opinion which I acknowledge is ignorant of all the facts, this man did not have the knowledge necessary to achieve more normal BG management without having severe hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia. Go low enough will counter highs giving a good HbA1c.
Time in Range is a better indicator of good BG management than the HbA1c. This image shows that.
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I’d agree with that perspective. He was a fairly recently diagnosed T2. It’s interesting. I don’t tend to worry about low BG, but I’ve been diabetic a long time and we all know that individuals have different physical reactions to it. I need to be constantly reminded that low BG is a concern for a lot of people.
P.S. Good catch while driving!
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I blame my obsession with monitoring my BG on years of monitoring electronic circuitry metrics to determine their health or need for adjustments or repair.
When 1st monitoring. Well it looks good. But there’s a history. Oh look it’s trending off. Adjust, continue monitoring. Good at an hour, is that good enough? No with this history do a 24 hour monitoring. The story of most of my working life.
I left out, if concerned try a different test set.
What worries me about this article is too many docs are hypophobes. They want to have you at 250mg/dl before they do anything.
They have ALWAYS been. They are the worst. But, on the other hand, maybe we have a bunch of new diabetics and older diabetics that are getting tossed onto an insulin pump and low a1c situations that are out of their league and its leading to increased deaths. I dunno.
To say what’s changed in the past 43 years: 43 years ago when I was diagnosed it was completely expected that I would develop retinopathy within a few years and kidney failure a little after that. There was almost no home bg testing available and when the doc ran a glucose test he would call my parents a week later with the result. Urine testing was the standard of care (but we all faked our test sheets ha ha). If any diabetic had an A1C test run it was because their doc was at a research hospital and they didn’t tell you your A1C number anyway. Joslin gave a medal to those who had survived 25 years with diabetes.
Today in 2025, after 43 years of diabetes? I visited the retina doctor for the zillionth time, no retinopathy. Kidneys working fine. All my docs (eye doc, GP, whatever) ask about my blood sugars. All because of the pioneering work of the DCCT studies in the 1980’s and an A1C goal. Going 25 years is no big deal now and the number of Joslin 50-year medal recipients is growing HUGELY. Having a CGM really does help.
The DCCT was a huge turning point in raising every T1 diabetic’s standard of care and in the past couple decades the tight bg goals have trickled down to T2’s. This is great. Yes hypos are a hazard.
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The facts in the article don’t match the headline.
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Ok. Yeah. Thanks for the feedback. That helps put me at ease. I’m running some of this DOJ complaint stuff past diabetics from other internet communities (just because we all have spoken to one another for a long time and might some group think). But, I am honestly running out of time. I really appreciate you all double checking the integrity of perspective about what I’m writing.