The National Institutes for Health has announced the partial suspension of a diabetes treatment study which was focusing on aggressive measures to reduce blood sugar levels. An article in The Wall Street Journal indicates that the aggressive strategy being used apparently resulted in a small increase in the number of patient deaths as compared to a moderate treatment approach being used on other patients who were involved in the study. The increase was merely three deaths per 1000 patients, yet researchers are unable to correlate the exact reasons for the increase in deaths and therefore the more aggressive portion of the testing has been terminated.

The study did not focus on specific treatments. Rather, researchers were attempting to determine the importance of differing treatment strategies. John Buse, president for medicine and science at the American Diabetes Association stated, "We were basically trying to see if we should have a full-court press on blood sugar or just try to do a reasonable job." The study, which is named Accord, involves providing diabetic patients with various drugs in an effort to reduce blood sugar levels and is also seeking to isolate particularly beneficial bio-markers for monitoring diabetic patient health.