Ideal Blood Sugars to Prevent Vascular Diseases

Ideal target blood sugar range that helps in lowering the risk of different types of vascular diseases like a stroke or heart attack in diabetics has been found by a study published in the online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Blood sugar control is one of the crucial methods for preventing stroke or any other vascular disease. The study team examined 18,567 people (average age of 70 years) with diabetes who were admitted to the hospital for an ischemic stroke.

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‘Ideal target blood sugar range that helps in lowering the risk of different types of vascular diseases like a stroke or heart attack is found to be lower than 6.5% hbA1C. ’

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The levels of average blood sugar over the past two to three months – hemoglobin A1C- were analyzed upon the participants' admission. Any value of HbA1C above 6.5% or higher generally indicates diabetes.

All the participants had an average A1C of 7.5%. They were then followed up one year later to explore if there was an association between A1C levels with the risk of another stroke, a heart attack, or dying from these or other vascular causes.

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It was seen that 1,437 (8%) of the participants had a heart attack or died from vascular disease within a year of starting the study, and 954, or 5%, had another stroke.

The increased risk of these vascular event were 27% more and 28% greater for another stroke among those with A1C levels above 7.0% when compared to those below 6.5%.

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However, the study had its limitation as the blood sugar levels were measured only at the start of the study with no follow-up levels available.

“We know that having diabetes may be associated with an increased risk of having a first stroke. However, our results indicate that there is an optimal blood sugar level that may start to minimize the risk of having another stroke, a heart attack, or other vascular problems, and it’s right in the 6.8% to 7.0% range. Our findings highlight the importance of keeping a close eye on your blood sugar if you’re diabetic and have had a stroke,” says the study author Moon-Ku Han, MD, Ph.D., of Seoul National University College of Medicine in Korea.

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Source-Medindia