(RxWiki News) Men with diabetes may be at increased risk for cardiovascular disease, even if they have no other risk factors. The risk is for diabetic men on insulin therapy and was not as high for men using other therapies for diabetes.
New research showed that men using insulin to manage their diabetes were more likely to have cardiovascular events like heart attack, stroke, or death when they were compared to men without diabetes.
Men managing diabetes with diet or oral medications did not have the same risk.
"Exercise and keep a healthy weight to help prevent diabetes."
A presentation by Jacob Udell, MD, at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology, summarized the findings of a study that used data from the international outpatient REACH registry. The REACH registry follows people aged 45 or less for up to 4 years. REACH tracks the cardiovascular related information of 68,000 patients in 44 countries.
The authors looked at rates of cardiovascular incident – heart attack, stroke, death – for people with diabetes and people without diabetes.
Results of their study show that men on insulin therapy were about 70% more likely than men without diabetes to have a cardiovascular incident even if they did not have a history of heart disease.
Experiencing a heart attack or stroke increases the risk of a future event. Diabetic men using insulin therapy had a higher risk of cardiovascular incident than men who had a previous incident but were not diabetic.
Women in this study, using any type of diabetes therapy, showed similar rates of cardiovascular incident to women without diabetes. Men on insulin therapy had a higher risk of cardiovascular incident than women.
The authors recommend doctors should closely monitor cardiovascular health of men on insulin therapy.
Presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology, March 25, 2012. The research was supported by Sanofi-Aventis, Bristol-Meyers-Squibb, Canadian Institutes for Health Research, Canadian Foundation for Women’s Health, the Waksman Foundation, and the World Heart Foundation.
