|
Diabetes is the most powerful predictor of heart failure in postmenopausal women with heart disease, according to a study reported in the September 14 issue of the journal Circulation.
Researchers analyzed records from 2,391 study participants with heart disease to determine risk factors for developing heart failure and found that 237 of the women (average age 68.3) developed heart failure after an average period of just over six years.
Women who had diabetes on entering the study were 3.1 times more likely to develop heart failure than women who did not have diabetes. Atrial fibrillation (abnormal heart rhythm) was the second most powerful predictor with a 2.9 times higher risk.
Study author Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, M.D., instructor in medicine, epidemiology, and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, said physicians treating women with coronary disease should focus on the risk factors for heart failure that are preventable or modifiable such as controlling blood sugar and obesity.
The researchers also found that women with diabetes who had well-controlled blood sugar levels had a relatively low rate of heart failure, while diabetic women with either poorly controlled diabetes, kidney disease or obesity had a risk of heart failure 6-10 times higher than that of women without diabetes.
The danger of developing heart failure increased in women with multiple risk factors. For women who had diabetes and kidney disease, the annual incidence of heart failure was 13 percent, according to the researchers.
Source:
Diabetes Week staff,
October 16, 2004
|
HOME PAGE
