Diabetics Face Doubled Risk of Heart Attack

(HealthDay News) -- Diabetics are more than twice as likely to suffer a heart attack, stroke and death from cardiovascular disease, putting them at the same risk level as non-diabetics who had previously suffered a heart attack, Danish researchers report.

The findings, appearing in April 1 issue of Circulation, led one study author to suggest all diabetics talk to their doctors about possibly starting treatments to control cholesterol levels and blood-pressure levels.

"We've talked about 'the lower, the better' for cholesterol and blood pressure to reduce the risk of heart attack," lead author Dr. Tina Ken Schramm, a research fellow at the Gentofte Hospital in Hellerup, Denmark, said in a prepared statement. "Now I think we should be saying the sooner, the better for primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases in diabetics."

The study analyzes patient and national registries for people aged 30 and older living in Denmark in 1997. Researchers found 71,801 people with diabetes and 79,575 who had a previous heart attack, then identified deaths and causes of death over five years.

"The increased risk was observed in people at all ages with either type 1 or type 2 diabetes who were receiving insulin or other drugs to reduce levels of sugar in the blood," Schramm said. "When people with diabetes do have heart attacks, they are twice as likely to die as non-diabetics."

The relative risk, or hazard ratio, of dying from cardiovascular disease was found to be 2.45 times greater for female diabetics compared with 2.62 times greater for women with a prior heart attack. The relative risk of dying from cardiovascular causes was 2.42 times higher in male diabetics; for men who had a prior heart attack the hazard ratio was 2.44.

When looking at heart attack, stroke or death from cardiovascular disease combined, men with diabetes faced a 2.32 higher risk while the risk rate was 2.48 for men who had at least one heart attack. For female diabetics, the combined relative risk was 2.48 while those with a history of myocardial infarction had a hazard ratio of 2.71.

The study did not look at patients on diet-only treatment for diabetes. The researchers also couldn't differentiate between type 1 and type 2 diabetes patients or adjust for common risk factors, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, smoking, physical activity and blood glucose levels.

Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of diabetes, develops when the body doesn't make enough insulin and fails to efficiently use what insulin it does produce. In type 1 diabetes, the pancreas makes little or no insulin, requiring the patient to need daily doses of insulin.

More information
The American Diabetes Association has more about diabetes prevention.

Diet survey: Men eat meat, women eat veggies

Story Highlights

• Diet survey confirms: Men eat more meat; women choose fruits, veggies


• Men slightly more likely to eat "risky" foods -- runny eggs, undercooked hamburgers


• Women more likely than men to eat only one risky food, raw alfalfa sprouts

ATLANTA , Georgia (AP) -- If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, then Mars is a land where the refrigerators are stocked with meat and frozen pizza and Venus has a bounty of yogurt, fruits and vegetables, a new study suggests.

The study of eating habits of American adults -- called the most extensive of its kind -- was a telephone survey of 14,000 Americans. It confirmed conventional wisdom that most men eat more meat than women, and women eat more fruits and vegetables.

But there were a few surprising exceptions: Men were much more likely to eat asparagus, brussels sprouts, peas and peanuts. They also were bigger consumers of frozen pizzas, frozen hamburgers and frozen Mexican dinners.

Women are more likely than men to eat eggs, yogurt and fresh hamburgers.
Men also showed a little more of an appetite for runny eggs and undercooked hamburgers -- two foods that health experts say carry a higher chance of contamination that can make you sick.

Women were more likely than men to eat only one risky food, raw alfalfa sprouts, which in the past 15 years have been linked to outbreaks of food poisoning.

The survey was done in 10 U.S. states, a collaboration between state and federal health officials. The results were presented Wednesday by Dr. Beletshachew Shiferaw, an Oregon health official, at a meeting of infectious disease experts in Atlanta.

Shiferaw said she could not explain some of the odder findings, like why men eat more asparagus than women.

The survey may help health educators better target public health messages about healthy eating, she said.

Earlier this week at the same meeting, federal researchers reported that the proportion of foodborne illness outbreaks linked to leafy green vegetables has been growing.

The researchers analyzed 10,000 foodborne outbreaks from 1973 through 2006. Leafy greens were blamed for about 2 percent of outbreaks in the first 10 years, 4 percent in the second decade and 6 percent in the third.

That rise far outpaced the percentage increases in how many greens Americans ate during that time, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers.