DIABETIC PATIENTS SIT ON TIME BOMB

Live from the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand meeting in Brisbane. Researchers from the University of Queensland reported into a study on 120 patients with diabetes. None of the patients had any symptoms but the researchers checked on heart function using a technique called echocardiography (ECG). It was found that 27% of the diabetic patients exhibited heart problems that were not causing symptoms probably predicting significant heart disease later in life. Generally, those who had the worst diabetic control had the worst heart function. Younger patients generally faired better than older patients and therapy with newer heart drugs and tighter control seemed to protect the heart.

Diabetes is a common condition. 940,000 Australians have diabetes and about half of those are not aware they have the condition. Diabetes can lead to heart disease (including coronary artery disease and heart failure).New techniques involving echocardiography (ultrasound of the heart) are being developed to detect heart disease sooner. This will alert doctors as to which patients are at risk of weakening heart muscle because of conditions such as diabetes.In a presentation to the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (CSANZ), meeting in Brisbane today, the top Australian cardiologists were told of a new study that has identified early forms of heart muscle weakening in diabetic patients.Tissue ‘Doppler imaging’ was used to study how much and how fast the walls of the heart were moving in 120 diabetic patients. This new technique identified significant muscle weakening in over a quarter of patients studied. This was found even though these diabetics did not have any obvious disease of the arteries around their hearts (coronary artery disease) or thickening (hypertrophy) of the heart muscle.Researchers concluded that heart muscle weakening was common in diabetic patients and associated with poor diabetic control, advancing age and hypertension (high blood pressure). They noted that ACE inhibitor and insulin therapy appeared to be protective against the damage.These advanced echocardiographic techniques have exciting potential which can lead to recognition of early heart muscle weakening. Once recognized, more aggressive treatment of diabetes and earlier treatment with medications can be used to prevent heart disease.