| Risk of death high in diabetics
with heart failure
By Megan Rauscher
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Danish cardiologists report that diabetes
is a strong independent risk factor for death in patients hospitalized
with heart failure. This is particularly true for women.
"Diabetes is common in heart failure patients, but information
on the prognostic effect of diabetes is sparse," Dr. Ida Gustafsson
from Frederiksberg University Hospital in Copenhagen and colleagues
note in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
"Our study shows that efforts to prevent development of cardiovascular
disease, in particular heart failure, in diabetic patients should
be optimized," Gustafsson told Reuters Health, "and diabetic
patients hospitalized for heart failure should receive special attention."
Gustafsson and colleagues examined the impact of diabetes on long-term
mortality in 5,491 consecutive patients who were hospitalized with
new or worsening heart failure. Nine hundred patients (16 percent)
had diabetes, 41 percent of whom were female.
During five to eight years of follow up, 84 percent of the diabetic
patients died compared with 70 percent of the non-diabetic patients.
After addition analysis, they found that diabetes increased the
overall risk of death by 50 percent. In diabetic women hospitalized
with heart failure, however, the risk of death was increased by
70 percent compared with a 40-percent increase in diabetic men.
"Clearly, heart failure requiring hospitalization is a very
serious condition in all patients with diabetes," Gustafsson
said. The diabetes-gender interaction is "surprising,"
she added, "and the explanation for it is not clear, and should
be investigated in future studies."
SOURCE: The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, March
3, 2004.
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