It has been hypothesized that patients who are at risk for diabetes or at the earliest stages of diabetes might benefit from insulin therapy. Furthermore, since no studies have shown cardiovascular benefit from glucose lowering therapy, it had been thought that reason for this was that therapy had not been started early enough and "the damage was already done." To investigate the benefit of early insulin use, researchers today presented results from one of the largest and longest studies of its kind.

The Outcome Reduction with Initial Glargine Intervention (ORIGIN) study randomized more than 12,500 people at high risk for, or in the early stages of, type 2 diabetes to either one daily injection of glargine (insulin) or standard care (no insulin), over a median of 6.2 years. Unfortunately, researchers found no difference among the two groups in any cardiovascular outcomes: heart attacks, strokes, or cardiovascular-related mortality. On the bright side, the investigators also looked at risk of cancer, and found none, adding reassurance to concerns regarding associations between glargine and cancer, which had been seen in studies several years ago.

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