Analyses raise new questions about diabetes care

* Lowering blood sugar not found cause of deaths in study

* Timing plays role in aggressiveness of care

* Individualized diabetes treatment works best

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO, June 9 (Reuters) - Strict lowering of blood sugar may not have been the cause of excess deaths in a major study of patients with type 2 diabetes, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

The trial, known as ACCORD, studied the effects of intensive strategies to help diabetics get near-normal blood sugar levels, but was stopped in February 2008 because there were 20 percent more deaths among people who got intensive treatment compared with those who got standard treatment.

One theory about the deaths is that they may have been caused by hypoglycemia or seriously low blood glucose levels.

But an analysis of deaths in the study suggests that was not the case. In fact, among those who had an episode of severe hypoglycemia, the risk of dying was lower among patients in an arm of the study who had been treated more aggressively.

"At this point we do not believe severe hypoglycemia ... is responsible for the increased risk of death seen among intensive arm participants," Dr. Denise Bonds, one of the ACCORD investigators, told reporters at the American Diabetes Association meeting in New Orleans.