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Heart failure patients with diabetes may benefit from higher glucose levels Full Text
EurekAlert!, 04/10/2012
A new study found that for advanced heart failure patients with diabetes, having higher blood glucose levels may actually help improve survival rates. Approximately 25 to 50 percent of patients with heart failure also have diabetes, compared to just 7 percent of the general population. The relation could be due to similar physiologic processes that underlie both conditions such as oxidative stress, patterns of hormonal activity and vascular lining dysfunction that can lead to conditions like atherosclerosis. Patients were classified as having diabetes or not and also grouped by four levels of glycosylated hemoglobin. Using statistical analysis, researchers calculated risk of death or need for an urgent heart transplant.
