Risk of heart failure up in ALVSD patients with diabetes

(HealthDay)—For patients with asymptomatic left ventricular systolic dysfunction (ALVSD), those with diabetes have increased risk of heart failure development and hospitalization, according to a study published in the June issue of Diabetes Care.

Rasmus Rørth, M.D., from the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom, and colleagues examined the development of symptomatic heart failure, heart failure hospitalization, and cardiovascular death according to baseline diabetes status in patients from the prevention arm of the Studies of Left Ventricular Dysfunction.

Overall, 15 percent of the 4,223 eligible participants had diabetes at baseline. The researchers found that 24 percent of the 3,567 patients without diabetes at baseline developed heart failure, compared with 33 percent of the 647 patients with diabetes during a median follow-up of 36 months. Patients with diabetes had an elevated risk for development of heart failure, heart failure hospitalization, and the composite outcome of development of heart failure or cardiovascular death (hazard ratios, 1.53, 2.04, and 1.48, respectively), in unadjusted analyses. Diabetes status did not modify the effect of enalapril on outcomes.

"In patients with ALVSD, diabetes is associated with an increased risk of developing heart failure, heart failure hospitalization and cardiovascular death," the authors write. "This information might help in the development of strategies to prevent the transition from ALVSD to overt heart failure."

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