Posted on 04/01/2008 12:48:50 AM PDT by neverdem
People with diabetes have the same risk of a heart attack or stroke as patients who have survived one heart attack already, researchers reported on Monday.
Diabetics have more than 2.4 times the normal risk of dying from cardiovascular disease -- about the same as those who have had a heart attack, the five-year Danish study of more than 3 million people found.
"The increased risk was observed in people at all ages with either type 1 or type 2 diabetes who were receiving insulin or other drugs to reduce levels of sugar in the blood," said Dr. Tina Ken Schramm, who led the study at the Gentofte Hospital in Hellerup, Denmark.
"When people with diabetes do have heart attacks, they are twice as likely to die as non-diabetics."
They found that men with diabetes were 2.32 more likely than normal to have a heart attack, stroke or die from heart disease, compared to 2.48 times the risk for men who had survived a heart attack.
Schramm's team was able to use national registries that cover virtually every patient in Denmark, and picked out all patients with diabetes receiving glucose-lowering medication.
Writing in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, Schramm suggested that all people with diabetes taking glucose-lowering drugs should ask their doctors about taking other drugs to protect their hearts.
"We've talked about 'the lower, the better' for cholesterol and blood pressure to reduce the risk of heart attack," Schramm said in a statement.
"Now I think we should be saying 'the sooner, the better' for primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases in diabetics."
(Reporting by Maggie Fox, editing by Will Dunham)
one more good reason not to be fat and sedentary
Not all diabetics are fat and sendatary. I’ve been a type 1 since I was 9yo when I weghed a grand totoal of 45#. You are fixated upon type2, type1 is much different and very seldom can be avoided.
I should have mentioned that I only meant type 2.
Just shows how long it takes the research to hit the public.
My previous endo, the head of the diabetes center at a major university, told me that patients at the center were treated as if they had had 1 heart attack. That meant blood pressure and cholesterol meds, even if your numbers didn’t indicate the need for them.
I had an issue w/the BP meds and stopped taking them (I don’t have a high BP and they were making me sick), but this info has been around since at least 2001 when I started to see this endo.
I can always count on FReepers for their humanity.
Diabetes can run in families, just like cancer and other diseases. Certain racial groups are more prone to it as well. My uncle was a colonel in the Army Reserve. He was fit, a former athlete, and motorcyclist. He ended up on dialysis for years, then one amputation, then another, finally death from massive infection.
The man was not 'fat and sedentary,' however, unlike other family members with this disease (including myself), he did not take care of himself once diagnosed and quickly fell into ill health.
Diabetes is a systemic condition and there is research that it may be due more to inflamation than anything else. There are people who weigh 400 lbs who aren't diabetic and people who are of normal weight and become Type 2.
I don't know why people feel they can make thoughtless comments about diabetics and not get called on it.
Diabetes, cholesterol, and is it the liver? Are those the triple play of heart problems that I read about recently?
I imagine lots of things can cause or trigger cardiac issues, yes?
Inflammation of anything? Chronic or acute?
you can’t do much about your family history but keeping a healthy weight and staying physically active are things that people have control over
This is supposed to be NEW NEWS
Perhaps you are right, although current research is tending toward obesity being an effect of type 2 diabetes instead of vice-versa.
And in other news, every one is going to die.
Is that insensitive?
Diabetic vasculopathy, that's why they go for tight control.
Atherosclerosis in type 2 diabetes: a role for fibrate therapy?
"Vascular complications associated with type 2 diabetes confer significant morbidity and mortality. Atherosclerosis develops much earlier and progresses more rapidly than in subjects without diabetes. The clustering of cardiovascular risk factors associated with type 2 diabetes is mainly responsible for accelerated atherosclerotic disease. While statins remain the primary lipid-modifying therapy, the pharmacological profile of the fibrates suggests potential as an alternative or additional treatment for reducing the risk of atherosclerotic vascular complications in type 2 diabetes."
Diabetes, cholesterol, and is it the liver? Are those the triple play of heart problems that I read about recently?
I think you're referring to metabolic syndrome, also known as syndrome X. Click that link or enter those terms into the query box at PubMed.
I imagine lots of things can cause or trigger cardiac issues, yes?
The biggest one is atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries, usually just called coronary artery disease(CAD).
Chronic, systemic inflammation.
See: Type 2 Diabetes: Inflammation, Not Obesity, Cause Of Insulin Resistance at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071106133106.htm
for an example.
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