|
 Cardiovascular disease has long been linked to diabetes in older
adults. The new study, however, offers fresh evidence that getting
diabetes as a younger adult may exacerbate or accelerate the erosion
of heart function as people age.
“Diabetes is toxic to the heart since it affects many important
components of the machinery,” said Dr. Genevieve Derumeaux, a
researcher at Henri Mondor Hospital in Creteil, France and author of
an editorial accompanying the study.
In particular, diabetes can damage the left ventricle, the bottom
left chamber of the heart responsible for pushing oxygen-rich blood
out into the circulatory system, Derumeaux said by email. Over time,
diabetes can make it harder for the chamber to fill with blood and
pump blood out into the body.
Globally, about one in 10 adults have diabetes, according to the
World Health Organization. Most have type 2 diabetes, which is
associated with obesity and aging and occurs when the body can’t
make or process enough of the hormone insulin.
Medications as well as lifestyle changes such as improved diet and
exercise habits can help manage diabetes and keep symptoms in check.
When diabetes isn’t well managed, however, dangerous spikes in blood
sugar can eventually lead to blindness, amputations, kidney failure,
heart disease and stroke.
For the current study, researchers examined data on nearly 3,200
adults over a 25-year period starting in 1985 when they were between
18 and 30 years old.
After initial medical exams, participants received a series of seven
additional checkups during the study period. The exams included
assessments of blood sugar and the ability to process the hormone
insulin, as well as imaging tests known as echocardiograms to
determine heart health.
By the end of the study, the participants who lived the most years
with diabetes were much more likely to have heart damage than their
peers without diabetes or participants who only developed the
condition more recently, the study found.
[to top of second column] |
When people developed what’s known as insulin resistance, a failure
to process the hormone, they were also much more likely to
experience heart damage by the end of the study.
One limitation of the study is that researchers lacked data on
diabetic complications, making it impossible for them to assess how
specific problems that developed with this disease might influence
the odds of heart damage, the authors note in the Journal of the
American College of Cardiology.
Even so, the findings point to the importance of preventing the
onset of diabetes and controlling blood sugar properly if the
condition does develop, the authors conclude.
“Cumulative exposure to diabetes and higher insulin resistance from
early adulthood to middle age are risk factors for adverse cardiac
dysfunction later in life,” lead study author Dr. Satoru Kishi, a
diabetes researcher at Mitsui Memorial Hospital in Tokyo, said by
email.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2bxiXEd and http://bit.ly/2cmLnXj Journal of
the American College of Cardiology, online August 17, 2016.
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
