--I realized that this is coming from a statistical comparison more than anything else; 257 people died over the course in the intensive treatment group compared to 203 in the standard treatment group. As the second article says, this amounts to 0.3 more deaths per 100 people in the study.

I'm assuming that whatever statistical analysis they performed here reached the level of statistical significance in order for this to get this much play, but I'd like to see that analysis (I haven't seen it in anything I've Googled up yet). Considering the many different mordities and mortality factors associated with diabetes, I wouldn't be convinced yet that this difference is not caused by chance factors (or lack of randomness in the study, such as there being higher incidence of morbidity factors in the "intensive" group to begin with).