Diabetics face different risks of cardiovascular disease

A new study has found that the risks of cardiovascular disease (CVD) are not the same for all diabetes patients. The scientists, from the United States and whose work was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, also claimed that levels of HbA1c (glycated haemoglobin) in the body was a better indicator of CVD risk in diabetes patients than assuming they are coronary heart disease (CHD) risk equivalent.
The research, which involved nearly 25,000 diabetes patients, pinpointed that not all people with diabetes were at high risk of possible future vascular events. It was revealed that there were better predictive results from using CVD risk calculators that incorporated HbA1c as compared with the risk calculators currently being used.
The research noted that “The use of HbA1c levels as part of overall CVD risk scores may improve predictive ability in diabetic patients, whose HbA1c levels are routinely measured in clinical practice.”
Mark Pletcher of the University of California, also commented “Allowing downward reclassification for some diabetic individuals, using a risk equation that included an indicator variable for diabetes and/or HbA1c measurements, should improve the overall accuracy of 10-year CVD risk prediction.”