Circulation: Cardiovascular quality and outcomes journal report

AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION

DALLAS, June 23, 2020 — Heart failure posed the greatest 5-year risk of death for people newly diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes than any other heart or kidney diseases, according to new research published today in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, an American Heart Association journal.

People with Type 2 diabetes are 2 to 4 times more likely to develop heart failure – a condition in which the heart fails to efficiently pump oxygenated blood through the body – than people without diabetes. Research on cardiovascular disease in people with Type 2 diabetes has traditionally involved patients with a long duration of diabetes who are considered high-risk patients. This retrospective, longitudinal study aimed to learn more about the risk of heart failure in people with newly diagnosed Type 2 diabetes.

“With the emergence of novel treatments such as SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 receptor antagonist medications for Type 2 diabetes, some of which are proven to reduce cardiovascular disease risk, clinicians are able to focus on cardiovascular disease and heart failure prevention in patients with Type 2 diabetes,” said Bochra Zareini, M.D., Ph.D., principal investigator and research fellow at Herlev Gentofte University Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark. “Our study highlights which subgroups of patients need and could benefit most from targeted risk evaluation, prevention and treatment.”

The study identified patients who were age 18 and older without prior heart and kidney disease and were newly diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in nationwide, Danish health registers. From 1998 to 2015, more than 153,000 patients were followed for approximately 10 years. During the median follow-up of 9.7 years, 45.1% of the patients (69,201) were diagnosed with a cardiovascular or kidney disease. Researchers estimated the five-year risk of death, the five-year risk ratios and the decrease in lifespan within five years associated with the development of any cardiovascular disease, such as heart failure, ischemic heart disease, stroke, peripheral artery disease and chronic kidney disease.

Researchers found:

• heart failure in combination with any other diagnosis in the study was associated with the greatest risk of death and highest decrease in lifespan compared to combinations of other cardiovascular diseases and Type 2 diabetes;
• the five-year risk ratio of death associated with heart failure development after Type 2 diabetes diagnosis was three times higher in patients with diabetes than in patients without diabetes;
• risks were elevated regardless of when the patient developed cardiovascular disease after being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes; and
• the elevated risk of death was present in all subgroups based on the patient’s age, gender and presence of other conditions.

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Co-authors are Paul Blanche, Ph.D.; Maria D’Souza, Ph.D.; Mariam Elmegaard Malik, M.D.; Caroline Holm Nørgaard, M.D.; Christian Selmer, M.D., Ph.D.; Gunnar Gislason, M.D., Ph.D.; Søren Lund Kristensen, M.D., Ph.D.; Lars Køber, M.D., D.M.Sc.; Christian Torp-Pedersen, M.D., D.M.Sc.; Morten Schou, M.D., Ph.D.; and Morten Lamberts, M.D., Ph.D. Author disclosures are in the manuscript.

The study was supported by the Danish Heart Association and an unrestricted hospital grant from Boehringer Ingelheim.

Additional Resources:

• Available multimedia is on right column of release link – https://newsroom.heart.org/news/death-risk-highest-for-people-with-newly-diagnosed-type-2-diabetes-who-get-heart-failure?preview=ff9d8d21d25243447364d07f7a87892b
• After June 23, 2020, view the manuscript online.
• Causes and Risks for Heart Failure
• Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes
• Know Diabetes by Heart
• Diabetes and heart failure are linked; treatment should be, too
• Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Heart Failure: A Scientific Statement from the American Heart Association and the Heart Failure Society of America
• Follow AHA/ASA news on Twitter @HeartNews
• Follow news from the AHA’s Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes journal @CircOutcomes

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