Treatment and confounders
HYPOGLYCEMIA
This study was confined to 15 visits out of 90 follow-up visits which included most of the observations. The time-varying treatment was either intensive or standard therapy at each visit. As clearly has been stated in ACCORD trial, the study compared two different treatment strategy (i.e. intensive vs standard therapy) rather than two medications. The intensive glycemic control group started on > or = 2 classes of antiglysemic agents and the doses were monthly intensified if HbA1c levels were > or = 6% or if > 50% of premeal or postmeal capillary glucose readings were > 5.6 mmol/L (100 mg/dL) or > 7.8 mmol/L (140 mg/dL), respectively. In the standard glysemic control, HbA1c level was targeted at 7–7.9% and therapy was intensified whenever HbA1c was > or = 8%, or reduced if HbA1c persistently decreased to < 7% in the setting of hypoglycemia. In this study, the intensive therapy was operationally defined as receiving at least two glucose lowering treatments, and standard therapy was defined as receiving one or no treatment