Reply #3: Many type II diabetics have a hard time tolerating a "normal" blood glucose

[Warpy]

level of 80-90. While keeping them that low can forestall complications of diabetes a little longer, it makes them feel like hell. Unfortunately, docs have been focused on stopping the complications, not on how their patients feel.

The same goes for people with hypertension. While that 110/60 looks great on paper, it doesn't translate into living a particularly comfy life as dizziness and near fainting episodes can be common.

The poor patient, desperate to feel decent, starts skipping the drugs completely and ends up in the hospital with a crisis that could have been prevented by listening to him and loosening the control just a little bit.

That's what I saw in years of practice, the "oops, I must have forgotten to take the stuff for a few days." It didn't fool any nurse but it seems to have fooled the numbers obsessed doctors who stabilized them again at the unrealistically low numbers and sent them back out to do it again--and they invariably do and boomerang back in a few weeks.

The pharma people aren't the problem here. It's the docs who are focused more on long term outcomes than patient tolerance.