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Aggressive diabetes, blood pressure treatments do more harm

Testing and treatment of diabetes and hypertension are actually causing more problems to patients.

By Marlene Y. Satter | Updated on April 29, 2016
Photo: Getty Images

Doctors have a hard time backing off on some forms of treatment that are doing more harm than good.  

According to Forbes, the too-aggressive treatment of blood pressure in diabetes patients, and of diabetes itself, has led to low blood pressure in the former and low blood sugar levels in the latter.  

Doctors are having a difficult time in reducing the level of treatment in patients who experience negative side effects, even when those negative side effects can outweigh the other benefits of continuing the treatment causing them. A study in JAMA Internal Medicine found that doctors weren’t backing off on hypertension treatments even when they caused a drop in blood pressure below recognized levels. There was also a lack of reduction in diabetes medications when patients’ blood sugar levels — their A1C results — fell too far. 

Researchers found that, when patients’ blood pressure levels fell below 120/65, less than a quarter of the doctors studied reduced the dosage of patients’ blood pressure pills — even for patients who were so old or ill that they probably had fewer than five years to live.

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