Health
Why Older People May Not Need to Watch Blood Sugar So Closely
By now, Ora Larson recognizes what’s happening. “It feels like you’re shaking inside,” she said. “I’m speeded up. I’m anxious.” If someone asks whether she would like a salad for lunch, she doesn’t know how to respond.
She has had several such episodes this year, and they seem to be coming more frequently.
“She stares and gets a gray color and then she gets confused,” her daughter, Susan Larson, 61, said. “It’s really scary.”
Hypoglycemia occurs when levels of blood sugar, or glucose, fall too low; a reading below 70 milligrams per deciliter is an accepted definition. It can afflict anyone using glucose-lowering medications to control the condition.
But it occurs more frequently at advanced ages. “If you’ve been a diabetic for years, it’s likely you’ve experienced an episode,” said Dr. Sei Lee, a geriatrician at the University of California, San Francisco, who researches diabetes in older adults.
The elder Ms. Larson, 85, has had Type 2 diabetes for decades. Now her endocrinologist and her primary care doctor worry that hypoglycemia may cause falls, broken bones, heart arrhythmias and cognitive damage.
Both have advised her to let her hemoglobin A1c, a measure of average blood glucose over several months, rise past 7 percent. “They say, ‘Don’t worry too much about the highs — we want to prevent the lows,’” the younger Ms. Larson said.
But her mother has spent 35 years working to maintain an A1c below 7 percent — a common recommendation, the goal people sing and dance about in pharma commercials.
She faithfully injects her prescribed drug, Victoza, about three times a week and watches her diet. She’s the oldest member of the Aqua for Arthritis class at a local pool in St. Paul, Minn.
So when her doctors recommended a higher A1c, she resisted. “I think it’s a bunch of hooey,” she said. “It didn’t make sense to me.”
“She got a lot of encouragement and recognition from her physicians for controlling her diabetes, staying on top of it,” her daughter explained. “They always praised her ‘tight control.’”
“For someone who’s been so compliant all these years, it’s like they changed the rules.”
In fact, they have.
More than a decade ago, the American Geriatrics Society called for a hemoglobin A1c of 7.5 to 8 for most older adults with diabetes, and 8 to 9 percent for those contending with multiple chronic illnesses and limited life expectancy. (The elder Ms. Larson has multiple sclerosis and hypertension.)
Other medical societies and advocacy groups, including the American Diabetes Association and the Endocrine Society, have also revised their guidelines upward for older patients.
Relaxing aggressive treatment can involve stopping a drug, lowering a dose or switching to another medication — an approach called de-intensification.
The advent of effective new diabetes drugs — GLP-1 receptor agonists (like Ozempic) and SGLT2 inhibitors (like Jardiance) — has further altered the landscape. Some patients can substitute these safer medications for risky older ones.
But the new drugs can also complicate decisions, because not all older patients can switch — and for those who can, insurance companies may balk at the new medications’ high price tags and deny coverage.
So de-intensification is proceeding, but too gradually.
A 2021 study of Medicare beneficiaries with diabetes, for instance, looked at patients who had gone to an emergency room or been hospitalized because of hypoglycemia. Fewer than half had their medication regimens de-intensified within 100 days.
“Nursing-home residents are the ones that get into trouble,” said Dr. Joseph Ouslander, a geriatrician at Florida Atlantic University and the editor in chief of The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Another 2021 study, of Ontario nursing homes, found that over half of residents taking drugs for Type 2 diabetes had A1c levels below 7 percent. Those with the greatest cognitive impairment were being treated most aggressively.
Dr. Ouslander has calculated, based on a national study, that roughly 40,000 emergency room visits annually resulted from overtreatment of diabetes in older adults from 2007 to 2011. He thinks the numbers are likely to be much higher now.
A brief primer: Diabetes can cause such grievous complications — heart attacks, stroke, vision and hearing loss, chronic kidney disease, amputations — that so-called strict glycemic control makes sense in young adulthood and middle age.
But tight control, like every medical treatment, involves a period of time before paying off in improved health. With diabetes, it’s a long time, probably eight to 10 years.
Older people already contending with a variety of health problems may not live long enough to benefit from tight control any longer. “It was really important when you were 50,” said Dr. Lee. “Now, it’s less important.”
Older diabetics don’t always welcome this news. “I thought they’d be happy,” Dr. Lee said, but they push back. “It’s almost like I’m trying to take something away from them,” he added.
The risk that tight control will also set off hypoglycemia increases as patients age.
It can make people sweaty, panicky, fatigued. When hypoglycemia is severe, “people can lose consciousness,” said Dr. Scott Pilla, an internist and diabetes researcher at Johns Hopkins. “They can become confused. If they’re driving, they could have an accident.”
Even milder hypoglycemic events “can become a quality-of-life issue if they’re happening frequently,” causing anxiety in patients and possibly leading them to limit their activities, he added.
Experts point to two kinds of older drugs particularly implicated in hypoglycemia: insulin and sulfonylureas like glyburide, glipizide and glimepiride.
For people with Type 1 diabetes, whose bodies cannot produce insulin, injections of the hormone remain essential. But the medication is “widely recognized as a dangerous drug” because of its hypoglycemia risk and should be carefully monitored, Dr. Lee said.
The sulfonylureas, he added, “are becoming less and less used” because, while less risky than insulin, they also cause hypoglycemia.
The great majority of older adults with diabetes have Type 2, which gives them more options. They can supplement the commonly prescribed drug metformin with the newer GLP-1 and SGLT2 drugs, which also have cardiac and kidney benefits. If necessary, they can add insulin to their regimens.
Among the new drugs’ more popular consequences, however, is weight loss.
“For older people, if they’re frail and not very active, we don’t want them losing weight,” Dr. Pilla pointed out. And both metformin and the GLP-1 and SGLT-2 medications can have gastrointestinal or genitourinary side effects.
For 15 years, Dan Marsh, 69, an accountant in Media, Pa., has treated his Type 2 diabetes by injecting two forms of insulin daily. When he takes too much, he said, he wakes up at night with “the damn lows,” and needs to eat and take glucose tablets.
Yet his A1c remains high, and last year doctors amputated part of a toe. Because he takes many other medications for a variety of conditions, he and his doctor have decided not to try different diabetes drugs.
“I know there’s other stuff, but we haven’t gone that way,” Mr. Marsh said.
With all the new options, including continuous glucose monitors, “figuring out the optimal treatment is becoming more and more difficult,” Dr. Pilla said.
Bottom line, though, “older people overestimate the benefit of blood-sugar lowering and underestimate the risk of their medications,” he said. Often, their doctors haven’t explained how the trade-offs shift with older age and accumulating health problems.
Ora Larson, who carries chewable glucose tablets with her in case of hypoglycemia (fruit juice and candy bars are also popular antidotes), intends to talk over her diabetes treatment with her doctors.
It’s a good idea. “The biggest risk factor for severe hypoglycemia is having had hypoglycemia before,” Dr. Lee said.
“If you have one episode, it should be thought of as a warning signal. It’s incumbent on your doctor to figure out, Why did this happen? What can we do so your blood sugar doesn’t go dangerously low?”
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Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables was found to have a surprising link to lung cancer among younger non-smokers, early research suggests.
The observational study, led by Jorge Nieva, M.D., of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center at Keck Medicine, was presented this month at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in San Diego. It has not yet been peer-reviewed.
Researchers looked at dietary, smoking and demographic data for 187 patients who were diagnosed with lung cancer at age 50 or younger.
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They found that among non-smokers, there was a link between healthier-than-average diets – rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains – and the chance of lung cancer development.
Young lung cancer patients ate more servings of dark green vegetables, legumes and whole grains compared to the average U.S. adult, the researchers found.
Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables was found to have a surprising link to lung cancer among younger non-smokers, early research suggests. (iStock)
The researchers hypothesized that pesticides applied to conventionally grown produce could be a possible factor in the disease association.
“Commercially produced (non-organic) fruits, vegetables and whole grains are more likely to be associated with a higher residue of pesticides than dairy, meat and many processed foods,” according to Nieva. He also noted that agricultural workers exposed to pesticides tend to have higher rates of lung cancer.
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“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking,” Nieva told Fox News Digital.
The disease is becoming more common in non-smokers 50 and younger, especially women – despite the fact that smoking rates have been falling for decades, the researcher noted.
The researchers hypothesized that pesticides applied to conventionally grown produce could be a possible factor in the disease association. (iStock)
“These patients tend to have eaten much healthier diets before their diagnosis than the average American,” he went on. “We need to support research into understanding why Americans – and women in particular – who no longer smoke very much are still having lung cancer,” he said.
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The study did have some limitations, Nieva acknowledged, primarily that it relied on survey data and was limited by the participants’ memories of their food intake.
“Also, the survey participants were self-selected, and this could have biased the findings,” he told Fox News Digital.
“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking.”
The researchers did not test specific foods for pesticides, relying instead on average pesticide levels for certain types of food. Looking ahead, they plan to test patients’ blood and urine samples to directly measure pesticide levels, Nieva said.
Although the study shows only an association and does not prove that pesticides caused lung cancer, Nieva recommends that people wash their produce before eating and choose organic foods whenever possible.
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“This work represents a critical step toward identifying modifiable environmental factors that may contribute to lung cancer in young adults,” said Nieva. “Our hope is that these insights can guide both public health recommendations and future investigation into lung cancer prevention.”
“It is possible that the increased lung cancer risk could be due to pesticide exposure in whole farmed foods, but is by no means certain,” a doctor said. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst, said the study is “interesting,” but that it “raises far more questions than it answers.”
“It is a small study (around 150) and observational, so no proof,” the doctor, who was not involved in the research, told Fox News Digital.
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“It is possible that the increased lung cancer risk could be due to pesticide exposure in whole farmed foods, but it is by no means certain,” Siegel went on. “How much exposure is needed? How much of it gets into food and in which areas? This requires much further study.”
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Kayla Nichols, communications director for Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network, a distributed global network, said the organization agrees with the study’s conclusion that more research should be done on the rise in lung cancer, particularly in individuals eating diets higher in produce and fiber.
“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking,” the researcher told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
“There is a bounty of existing research that already links pesticide exposure to increased risk of multiple types of cancers,” Nichols, who was also not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital. She called for more research on chronic, low-level exposures to pesticides, as well as more effective policies to protect the public from pesticide residues on food.
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The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute, as well as industry partners including AstraZeneca and Genentech, among others.
Fox News Digital reached out to several pesticide companies and trade groups for comment.
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Colorectal cancer, once considered a disease of older age, is becoming a crisis for younger adults. New research shows one group getting hit the hardest – those without a college degree.
A recent study from the American Cancer Society analyzed data from over 101,000 adults aged 25 to 49 who died from colorectal cancer between 1994 and 2023.
While death rates remained stable for college graduates, they climbed significantly for those without a bachelor’s degree, the findings showed.
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For young adults with a high school education or less, the mortality rate rose from 4.0 to 5.2 per 100,000 people, while the rate for those with at least a bachelor’s degree stayed flat, at approximately 2.7 per 100,000.
This does not mean that a degree offers some kind of biological protection, researchers cautioned.
Colorectal cancer, once considered a disease of older age, is becoming a crisis for younger adults. (iStock)
The difference is likely driven by the conditions in which people live and work, which often correlate with education levels, the researchers noted.
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The study suggests that the higher death rates are likely driven by differences in the prevalence of risk factors, including obesity, physical inactivity, smoking and diet, which are “known to be elevated among children and young adults with lower [socioeconomic status].”
Because the study relied on death certificates, researchers couldn’t say exactly why college graduates had better outcomes.
Because the researchers didn’t have the patients’ actual medical records, they couldn’t see things like frequency of screenings or treatment options, which would impact survival outcomes. (iStock)
Certificates typically list the cause of death, age, race and education level, but they do not include a person’s full medical history.
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Because the researchers didn’t have the patients’ actual medical records, they couldn’t see things like frequency of screenings or treatment options, which would impact survival outcomes.
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Colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death for men under 50 and the second leading cause for women in the same age group, according to recent statistics.
While colorectal cancer death rates remained stable for college graduates, they climbed significantly for those without a bachelor’s degree, the findings showed. (iStock)
Because the disease is highly treatable when caught early, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) lowered the recommended screening age from 50 to 45 in 2021.
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Common signs and symptoms of colorectal cancer can include a change in bowel habits, such as diarrhea, constipation or narrowing of the stool, that lasts for more than a few days, according to the American Cancer Society.
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Other signs that warrant seeing a doctor include blood in the stool or a persistent feeling of needing to go to the bathroom but being unable to go.
The research was published in JAMA Oncology.
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A young woman who started vaping at the age of 15 has been given just 18 months to live — after being diagnosed with lung cancer in her early 20s.
Kayley Boda, 22, of Manchester, in the United Kingdom, was engaging in heavy vaping on a regular basis when she started coughing up a brown substance with “grainy bits” in it in January 2025, news agency SWNS reported.
The retail assistant said doctors turned her away eight times, telling her she had a chest infection — until she began coughing up blood.
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After seven biopsies, Boda was diagnosed with lung cancer. She underwent surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, as well as chemotherapy — and in February 2026, got the all-clear, the same source reported.
Two months later, though, doctors said the cancer had come back in the pleural lining. Now she’s been given 18 months to live.
Kayley Boda, 22, is shown in the hospital. She started coughing up a brown substance with “grainy bits” in January 2025, she said. She had been vaping since the age of 15. (SWNS)
The young woman has now issued a warning to others to be aware of the dangers of vaping.
Boda said she smoked a bit as a young teenager. She took up vaping after that.
Then, “a few months after I switched from reusable vapes to disposable ones, I started coughing up brown, grainy mucus,” as SWNS reported.
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“Doctors turned me away eight times with a chest infection. … Then I started coughing up blood, so they did an X-ray and found a shadow on my lung,” she added.
“They told me they were 99% sure, [since I was] so young, that it wasn’t cancer, so not to worry about it. When I got the results back, and they told me it was lung cancer, it felt so surreal.”
Boda said she was “very naive” before her diagnosis and thought that “something like this would never happen to me.”
She said that she had surgery to remove half of her right lung.
“After the surgery, I started chemo and I had a terrible reaction to it. I couldn’t lift my head up. I was throwing up blood. I was urinating blood. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep.”
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She said that when she got the “all clear [in Feb. 2026], it felt amazing, but just two months later I was told the cancer had come back, and I have 18 months to live.”
She added, “I’m 22. This isn’t meant to happen to somebody my age.”
“Stay off the vapes because they will catch up with you.”
She blames her cancer on vaping, she said.
“My symptoms started a few months after I started disposable vapes, and there’s no lung cancer in my family,” she said. “I haven’t vaped for three months, I’ve made my partner stop, I’ve made my mom stop, I’m urging all my friends to stop. Stay off the vapes,” she continued, “because they will catch up with you.”
When doctors did an X-ray, they found a shadow on Boda’s right lung. She was later diagnosed with lung cancer and has undergone surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, as well as chemotherapy. (SWNS)
She said she’d been using reusable vapes since the age of 15 and began using disposable vapes a few months before her cancer symptoms started.
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In November 2024, when she developed a rash all over her body, doctors said it could have been due to shingles, chicken pox or scabies, she told SWNS.
‘Nothing worked’
“I got treated for all three, and nothing worked,” Boda said. “It got to the point where I was cutting myself from scratching so hard.”
A few months after that, she began coughing up a dark brown mucus, with “grainy bits, the consistency of sugar, in it,” she said. When the coughing continued, she visited the doctor’s office, but was told it could be scarring from pneumonia or a chest infection, she also said.
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It wasn’t until March 2025 that she began coughing up bright red blood. At that point, doctors gave her a chest X-ray and told her they’d found a shadow on her lower right lung.
Over the next four months, she had seven biopsies as doctors took samples from the “shadow.” In August, when she went to get the results, she was told she had stage one lung cancer.
Boda is shown in the hospital. She was diagnosed with lung cancer and had surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, as well as chemotherapy. (SWNS)
In September 2025, she had surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, and the surrounding lymph nodes. During the surgery, doctors upstaged her cancer from stage one to stage three after finding cancer in six surrounding lymph nodes, she said.
Following the surgery, Boda was unable to breathe properly and had to learn to walk all over again.
“The oncologist said this is so rare.”
After finishing chemotherapy in February 2026, Kayley was given the all clear, leaving her feeling elated.
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However, just a month after that, she began experiencing extreme chest pains and was told by doctors she had a pleural effusion — a build-up of fluid in the lungs. She had the fluid removed, but when doctors tested it, they discovered her cancer had returned to the pleural lining of her lungs, giving her 18 months to live.
“The oncologist said this is so rare, and usually something they see in patients that are 80 years old,” she said, as SWNS reported.
Increasingly, vacation hot spots are enforcing strict bans on the use of e-cigarettes in public venues. (iStock)
Boda claimed that doctors were unable to pin her cancer to a specific cause — but told her that smoking and vaping definitely didn’t help.
Since her diagnosis, she has stopped and is urging others to stop, too.
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She’s hoping to raise the thousands of dollars needed for treatment to try to prolong her life, she said.
Last year, Fox News Digital reported on the case of a Pennsylvania woman, 26, who said she vaped for just one year before her lungs collapsed. She was 22 when she took up the habit, she said in an interview.
“Everybody warned me about it, but I didn’t listen — I wish that I did,” she said.
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Dr. David Campbell, clinical director and program director at Recover Together Bend in Oregon, told Fox News Digital at that time that signs of collapsed lungs include sharp chest or shoulder pain, shortness of breath and difficulty breathing.
Lung issues are just one of the many health issues linked to vaping, he warned. The habit can also increase the risk of heart disease and stroke, as well as exposure to harmful heavy metals.
Melissa Rudy of Fox News Digital contributed reporting.
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