These latest results from the UK Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS), one of the longest ever clinical trials in type 2 diabetes, were made feasible by incorporating NHS data.
Professor Rury Holman of Oxford's Radcliffe Department of Medicine, the founding Director of the University of Oxford Diabetes Trials Unit and Chief Investigator of the UKPDS, said, ‘These remarkable findings emphasise the critical importance of detecting and treating type 2 diabetes intensively at the earliest possible opportunity.
‘People may have type 2 diabetes for several years before being diagnosed as they may have few symptoms until their blood sugars become substantially elevated.’
20-year trial led to worldwide guideline changes in blood glucose control
Starting in 1977, the UKPDS randomly allocated people with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes to an intensive blood glucose control strategy with sulfonylureas, insulin, or metformin, or to a conventional blood glucose control strategy, primarily with diet.
The 20-year trial results, published in 1998, showed that good blood glucose control reduced the risk of diabetic complications. Worldwide, UKPDS changed guidelines to recommend intensive blood glucose control for everyone with type 2 diabetes.