A new study by a team of scientists at UCLA and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles suggests that men with cardiovascular diseases are still facing high death risk even if their blood sugar level is considered normal.

"Our findings suggest that for men with cardiovascular disease, there is apparently no 'normal' blood sugar level," said Sidney Port, UCLA professor emeritus of mathematics and statistics, and lead author of the study. "For these men, across the normal range, the lower their blood sugar, the better. Their death rate over a two-year period soars from slightly more than 4 percent at a glucose level of 70 (mg/dl) to more than 12 percent at 100 (mg/dl) - an enormous increase."

Surprisingly, however, and contrary to conventional belief, above 100 (mg/dl), their risk does not seem to change - it stays at the same high level - no matter how high above the normal range, Port said. Their death rate at 100 and 150 is the same. Although these data suggest that blood sugar for men with cardiovascular disease should be as low as possible, co-author Mark Goodarzi, assistant professor-in-residence at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's Division of Endocrinology, cautions that their study by no means proves that deliberately lowering glucose would reduce mortality.

Cardiovascular disease includes coronary heart disease, stroke, angina and peripheral vascular disease. Currently, doctors consider a glucose level of 100 or less to be normal, 101-126 to be impaired and above 126 to be diabetic.

The study which examined the connection between glucose (blood sugar) levels and death in patients with cardiovascular disease, is published on the February 15 issue of American Journal of Epidemiology.