Study: Diabetes Raises Fatal Heart Attack Risk by 50%
New research suggests that patients with diabetes have a 50% higher risk of fatal heart attack.
Investigators from the University of Leeds used data from the UK acute myocardial infarction registry (MINAP) to conduct a nationwide, population-based cohort study of roughly 700,000 individuals who had been hospitalized between January 1, 2003 and June 30, 2013. Among these patients, 121,000 had diabetes. In an effort to explore the long-term excess risk of death associated with diabetes following acute myocardial infarction, the authors matched age, sex, calendar year, and country-specific mortality rates for the populace of England and Wales to cases of ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and non-STEMI. Using parametric survival models, the researchers calculated excess mortality rate ratios after multivariable adjustment.
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Overall, all-cause mortality was higher among patients with diabetes than those without the disease (35.8% compared to 25.3%). After adjustment for age, sex, and year of myocardial infarction, diabetes was linked to a 72% excess risk of death following STEMI, and a 67% excess risk of death following NSTEMI. The connection between diabetes and “substantial excess mortality” remained significant despite cumulative adjustment for comorbidity and cardiovascular treatments, according to the authors.
“At index acute myocardial infarction, diabetes was common and associated with significant long-term excess mortality,” the researchers wrote, “over and above the effects of comorbidities, risk factors, and cardiovascular treatments.”
—Mark McGraw
Reference:
Alabas O, Hall M, et al. Long-term excess mortality associated with diabetes following acute myocardial infarction: a population-based cohort study [published online June 15, 2016]. J Epidemiol Community Health. doi:10.1136/jech-2016-207402.