Heart disease a threat to older diabetics-study
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Elderly people with diabetes are twice as likely to die from cardiovascular disease than non-diabetics, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
Dr. Joshua Barzilay of Kaiser Permanente in Tucker, Georgia, and colleagues studied a group of about 6,000 people older than 65 for 11 years. During that period, more than 40 percent of the people died, and about 50 percent to 60 percent of the deaths were attributed to heart-related problems, they wrote in a report in the online journal Public Library of Science.
The study showed that the participants with diabetes were twice as likely to die from cardiovascular disease as non-diabetics were, and the risk was particularly high for patients who required insulin injections. The results were adjusted for factors known to affect heart disease risk such as smoking, alcohol consumption and cholesterol levels.
Researchers also found that participants who were taking insulin were six times more likely to die from infectious diseases or kidney failure than non-diabetic participants. Women treated with insulin had a particularly high mortality risk.
“Diabetes is a growing global health problem,” the journal’s editors said in a commentary. “By 2030, 300 million people worldwide may have this chronic, incurable disorder, double the current number.”
Studies have indicated that diabetes increases the risk of death from cardiovascular disease in young and middle-aged people, but it was not clear how it affected older people.
“The estimate that elderly people with diabetes are twice as likely to die from CVD (cardiovascular disease) as people without diabetes is important,” the commentary said. “Many elderly people die anyway because of CVD, so this increased risk represents many more deaths than the similar increased risk in younger diabetic populations.”
The editors noted that elderly people often receive less-intensive treatment of risk factors for heart disease, such as high blood pressure and cholesterol, than younger people.
“The results of this study suggest that rectifying this situation could prolong the lives of many elderly people with diabetes,” they wrote.
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