DOC News November 1, 2007
Volume 4 Number 11 p. 15
© 2007 American Diabetes Association
Diabetes Risk Rises After Heart Attack
It's well known that people with type 2 diabetes run roughly the same risk
of having a heart attack as non-diabetics who have already had one. What may
be less recognized, according to a study recently reported in the journal
Lancet, is that heart attack appears to increase the risk of
subsequently developing type 2 diabetes.
A group of investigators from the U.S. and Italy reached this conclusion
from an analysis of data from the Gruppo Italiano per lo Studio della
Sopravvivenza nell'Infarto Miocardico (GISSI)-Prevenzione study, a randomized
trial of the effects of fish oil and vitamin E in people who have had a heart
attack. The study tracked 8,291 people in Italy who had a heart attack within
the previous 3 months and were free of diabetes and did not have impaired
fasting glucose at the study's beginning.
During an average follow-up of 3.2 years, nearly half of the participants
developed pre-diabetes, as indicated by impaired fasting glucose (
110
mg/dl). Another 12% developed full-blown diabetes. "Our results indicate
that myocardial infarction could be a pre-diabetes risk equivalent," the
researchers posit.
The GISSI-Prevenzione trial examines the impact of a Mediterranean-type
diet and other lifestyle risks. The researchers suggest that smoking
cessation, prevention of weight gain, and consumption of a Mediterranean-type
diet high in fruits, vegetables, bread and other cereals, potatoes, beans,
nuts and olive oil and low in dairy, fish, poultry and red meat, with moderate
amounts of wine, may mitigate the risks of diabetes following heart
attack.
Mozaffarian D, Marfisi R, Levantesi G, et al.: Incidence of
new-onset diabetes and impaired fasting glucose in patients with recent
myocardial infarction and the effects of clinical and lifestyle risk factors.
Lancet 370:667–675, 2007.[Medline]
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