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Diabetes and heart failure is double trouble for older womenNewswise — New research from UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) shows that the effect of diabetes on the severity of illness and risk of death for patients with heart failure is much worse in women than men. The effect is even more pronounced in older patients, according to findings published online in Heart on May 8.
The UAB research team, led by Ali Ahmed, M.D., MPH, associate
professor in the division of gerontology,
geriatrics and palliative care and director of
UAB’s Geriatric Heart Failure Clinic and
Geriatric Heart Failure Research, found that
diabetes was associated with a significant
increase in the risk of death and
hospitalization in patients with heart failure.
Women over age 65 had worse outcomes than men or
younger women.
“Our results suggest that heart failure patients should be
thoroughly evaluated for the presence of
diabetes and if it is present, should be
intensively managed based on published
guidelines,” said Ahmed. “Further studies
should test current interventions and
develop new ones to reduce the adverse
effects of diabetes in heart failure
patients in general, and among older adults
in particular.”
They used a
technique called propensity score matching
to design their study while remaining
blinded to study outcomes as in a randomized
clinical trail. Patients were followed on
average for 38 months and analysis performed
in two stages; one to see if the effect of
diabetes differed in male or female heart
failure patients and a second to examine if
the age of the patient contributed to the
effect of diabetes.
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