Los Angeles ? It seemed like a good idea at the time. Diabetics are at an unusually high risk of heart disease, heart attacks and strokes, so treating them intensively to sharply reduce blood pressure, cholesterol levels and sugar levels should be highly beneficial. But a decade of studies in thousands of patients show that is not the case.

Two new reports from a major nationwide trial called ACCORD released Sunday show lowering either blood pressure or cholesterol levels below current guidelines do not provide additional benefit and, in fact, increase the risk of side effects. A third arm of the study, released two years ago, shows lowering blood sugar levels excessively actually increases the risk of heart disease.

The results are disappointing, researchers say, because they suggest clinicians may have reached the limit for what they can do for diabetic patients without developing new therapeutic approaches.

But the good news is, the findings “reduce the cost and potential side effects of drug therapy” and mean patients will not have to work as hard at reducing blood sugars, lipids and blood pressure, said Dr. Denise Simons-Morton of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which funded the trial.

“The take-home message is that the standard care approaches are pretty good. If we try to go beyond them, it doesn’t provide additional benefit.”