Screening for and treating left-ventricular abnormalities in diabetes mellitus: a new way of reducing cardiac deaths

Patients with diabetes have an increased risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. 1 Butler RA MacDonald TM Struthers AD Morris AD The clinical implications of diabetic heart disease. Eur Heart J. 1998; 19: 1617-1627 Crossref PubMed Scopus (49) Google Scholar In the Framingham population, 2 Garcia MJ McNamara PM Gordon T Kannel WB 16 year follow up study: morbidity and mortality in diabetics in the Framingham population. Diabetes. 1976; 23: 105 Crossref Scopus (1430) Google Scholar risk of cardiovascular disease was doubled in men with diabetes and tripled in women with the disease, even after adjustment for other risk factors such as hypertension, smoking, and dyslipidaemia. To improve this statistic, researchers need first to characterise the precise type of cardiac abnormalities associated with diabetes. To this end, the term diabetic cardiomyopathy was coined 30 years ago. 3 Rutler S Dlyugash J Yuceoglyu YZ et al. New type of cardiomyopathy associated with diabetic glomerulosclerosis. Am J Cardiol. 1972; 30: 595-602 Summary Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (1302) Google Scholar Since then, the definition of diabetic cardiomyopathy has been greatly redefined, and there is now general agreement on the type of heart disease associated with diabetes.