Prediabetes – increased risk factor for heart disease and early death

Prediabetes is a “pre-diagnosis” of diabetes – when a person’s blood sugar is higher than normal, but not high enough to be considered diabetes. It is estimated that over 470 million people worldwide will have prediabetes by 2030 and up to 70% of them will eventually develop type 2 diabetes.

Possible links between prediabetes and the risk of heart disease and death have become a focus of interest in recent years, but the results have been inconsistent and the term prediabetes remains controversial.

To explore this topic, Chinese researchers at Southern Medical University analyzed the results of 129 studies on the associations between prediabetes, cardiovascular disease risk (CVD) and death from any cause (all causes of mortality) in people with and without a history of heart disease (over 10 million).

The results showed that in the general population, prediabetes was associated with an increased risk of 13% mortality from all causes and an increased risk of 15% of cardiovascular disease, over an average follow-up period of about 10 years. He also had a higher risk of coronary heart disease and stroke.

In absolute terms, this equates to 7 more deaths per 10,000 people and almost 9 additional cases of cardiovascular disease per 10,000 people in the general population, compared to normal blood sugar levels.

In patients with a history of heart disease, prediabetes was associated with a 36% increased risk of mortality from any cause and a 37% increased risk of cardiovascular disease over a mean follow-up of approximately 3 years. . However, no difference in the risk of stroke was observed.

In absolute terms, this equates to 66 more deaths per 10,000 people and almost 190 additional cases of cardiovascular disease compared to normal blood sugar.

The researchers found that tolerance to impaired glucose (higher than normal blood sugar after eating) has a higher risk of causing mortality, coronary heart disease and stroke than impaired glucose (higher than normal blood sugar). blood after a period of fasting).

This analysis has several strengths, including the high quality and large size of the included studies. However, the researchers did not have access to the data of the individual participants and cannot rule out the possibility that some of the observed risks may have been due to unmeasured factors.

Therefore, the findings suggest that proper screening and administration of prediabetes may help prevent cardiovascular disease in healthy people (primary prevention) as well as those with existing heart problems (secondary prevention).

Source here.