Study proves association between pre-diabetes and increased risk of heart attack

Patients with this condition were 25% more likely to have a heart attack.

At Endo 2022, the annual meeting of the Society of Endocrinology held in the middle of last month, a new study pointed out that pre-diabetes should be considered, in isolation, a risk factor for the occurrence of a heart attack. This is a condition in which glucose levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to make a diagnosis of the disease. However, the probability of progression to the disease increases significantly for those who have fasting blood glucose values ​​between 100 and 125mg/dL, or glycated hemoglobin between 5.7% and 6.4%. Brazil has close to 17 million diabetics, half of whom are unaware of this fact, and it is estimated that at least 40 million are pre-diabetic.

Dr Geethika Thota, lead author of the paper, said that the association between pre-diabetes and heart problems was not yet well-founded, but that researchers analyzed data referring to almost 1.8 million hospitalizations of victims of heart attack: “making the adjustments of risk factors, patients with prediabetes were 25% more likely to have a heart attack.” In her opinion, this only reinforces the need to address the issue so that it becomes part of health policies: “we need to encourage everyone who is in this condition to adopt a healthy diet and do 150 minutes of physical activity a week”, she stressed.

According to the International Diabetes Federation, deaths caused by the disease in the world exceed those from HIV and breast cancer combined. It is estimated that 425 million people have the disease, a total that is expected to reach 600 million in two decades. If the initial symptoms are excessive hunger and thirst, the long-term complications can be devastating: stroke, heart attack, kidney failure, blindness, amputation of limbs.