Women with diabetes are at increased risk of heart failure than men with diabetes according to recent research.
Diabetes has always been associated with an increased risk of heart failure. But there was no previous study to establish possible sex differences in the excess risk of heart failure consequent to diabetes.
In a first of a kind of research that studies the possible sex differences was published on an online journal Diabetologia, on 18 July, 2019.
Let us try to understand what the research has to say and how this was carried out.
Research context
What is already known
- Diabetes is associated with an increased risk of heart failure.
- There is accumulating evidence that women as compared to men has an excess increased risk of cardiovascular disease, following the diagnosis of diabetes.
What is the key question
- Does diabetes confer the excess risk of heart failure in women than men?
Research methodology
A systematic search was conducted in PubMed for population-based cohort studies published between January 1966 and November 2018.
Studies were selected if they reported sex-specific estimates of RRs for heart failure associated with diabetes in both men and women, and its associated variability, which were adjusted at least for age.
Random-effects meta-analyses with inverse variance weighting were used to obtain pooled sex-specific RRs and women-to-men ratio of RRs (RRRs) for heart failure associated with diabetes.
Result
Data from 47 cohorts, involving 12,142,998 individuals and 253,260 heart failure events, were included. Women with type 1 diabetes had a 47 percent higher risk of heart failure compared with men with type 1 diabetes. Women with type 2 diabetes had a 9 percent higher risk of developing the condition than men with type 2 diabetes.
Conclusions/interpretation
The excess risk of heart failure associated with diabetes is significantly greater in women with diabetes than in men with diabetes.
Sources:
- Diabetes as a risk factor for heart failure in women and men: a systematic review and meta-analysis of 47 cohorts including 12 million individuals: Published on Diabetologia, 18 July, 2109: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00125-019-4926-x
The author is a physiotherapist who has been practising for the last 17 years. He owns a successful physiotherapy clinic named "Physiofirst" in Rourkela, Odisha, India.
He holds a Bachelor's in Physiotherapy (BPT) from SVNIRTAR (Swami Vivekananda National Institute of Rehabilitation and Research), one of the prestigious physiotherapy schools in India.
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