Intensive Glucose Lowering and Its Effects on Vascular Events and Death According to Age at Diagnosis and Duration of Diabetes: The ADVANCE Trial

Objective: To compare the vascular effects of pursuing more versus less glucose lowering in patients with younger or older age at diabetes diagnosis, and with shorter or longer diabetes duration.

Research design and methods: We studied 11,138 participants from the Action in Diabetes and Vascular Disease: Preterax and Diamicron MR Controlled Evaluation (ADVANCE) trial, classified into subgroups defined by age at diabetes diagnosis (≤50, >50-60, and >60 years) and diabetes duration (≤5, >5-10, and >10 years).

Results: Intensive glucose lowering significantly lowered the risk of the primary composite outcome of major macrovascular and microvascular events (hazard ratio 0.90, 95% CI 0.82-0.98) with no evidence of heterogeneity in the proportional effects across subgroups defined by age at diagnosis or diabetes duration (P for heterogeneity = 0.86 and 0.47, respectively). Similar consistent treatment effects were also observed for all-cause death, cardiovascular death, and the components of major vascular events.

Conclusions: Intensive glucose lowering may be recommended irrespective of age at diagnosis or diabetes duration.