It’s a no-brainer really – if you diagnose and treat type 2 diabetes early so that blood glucose can be controlled, the risk of diabetes complications like heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure and amputation will be reduced.

These are the latest results from the UK Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS), one of the longest ever clinical trials in type 2 diabetes.

This research has particular ­relevance in the light of the alarming rise in type 2 diabetes reported recently in the under-50s.

Oxford’s Professor Rury Holman, UKPDS Chief Investigator, has highlighted the relevance of the research.

“These remarkable findings ­emphasise the critical importance of detecting and treating type 2 diabetes intensively at the earliest possible opportunity,” he said.

He points out the main problem: “People may have type 2 diabetes for several years before being diagnosed as they may have few symptoms until their blood sugars become substantially elevated.”

Starting in 1977, the UKPDS randomly allocated people with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes to an ­intensive blood glucose control strategy with drugs like sulfonylureas, insulin, or metformin, or to a ­conventional blood glucose control strategy, primarily with diet.

The 20-year trial results, published in 1998, showed that good blood glucose control reduces the risk of diabetic complications. Professor Holman delivers the news that the effect of controlling blood sugar early has important long-term consequences.

“Despite this, the 10-year post-trial monitoring study, published in 2008, showed those who had been allocated to early intensive blood glucose control continued to experience fewer diabetic complications compared with those allocated to conventional blood glucose control,” he said. The new results show that the legacy of ­implementing intensive blood glucose control straight after the diagnosis of diabetes continues to persist for up to 24 years after the trial ended.

That’s spectacular.