Heart Attacks May Predict Diabetes

As I’ve often noted on this blog one of the best ways to increase longevity is to minimize the risks for serious causes of death as noted by the CDC. Toping this list is heart attack as I noted in my last post on the common signs of clogged arteries.

Another leader on this list is diabetes however it is notable that most people who have diabetes do not actually die because of it but due to something else which is often affected greatly by the presence of Diabetes.

Predict Diabetes
I recently ran across this interesting article which was just published in the Medical Journal, Diabetes Care, which was based on the 2009 American Diabetes Association (ADA) Scientific Sessions. The article discusses the relationship between heart attacks and diabetes and implies a reasonable way to decrease your risk for having heart attacks or to predict diabetes after a heart attack.

The article notes findings and conclusions from the Steven Haffner’s San Antonio Heart Study which found that people who had heart attacks who had not ever been diagnosed as having diabetes did in fact have diabetes one third of the time and had pre-diabetes another third of the time.

In essence the heart attack was a warning sign or symptom related to an undiagnosed diabetic condition. It was further implied that:

“[cardio vascular disease] prevention might be gained with diabetes prevention. Waist, triglyceride, and fasting glucose were not, but HDL cholesterol, blood pressure, and the presence of diabetes have been shown as predictors of CVD.”

Prevent Diabetes To Prevent Heart Atatcks
What they are saying is that diabetes is a predictor for cardiovascular disease which is the leading cause of death in America. And even in cases where diabetes was never diagnosed prior to a heart attack the patients were at least in pre-diabetes condition at the time of the heart attack. Thus, if you make your emphasis on preventing diabetes you will simultaneously be lowering your risk for heart disease.

“Risk factors for conversion to diabetes were age, obesity, fasting and 2-h glucose, fasting insulin, and, more strongly, insulin sensitivity...”

You can’t do anything about your age but lowering obesity, improving insulin sensitivity, and maintaining a normal blood sugar range is crucial to preventing diabetes and if you do these things then according to this paper you may be decreasing your risk for having a heart attack too which just might help you live longer.

You can see the full paper at Diabetes Care here.