Silent Heart Disease Common in Diabetics

http://diabetes.org/diabetesnewsarti...healthEDIT.xml

or

http://tinyurl.com/2y2seq

(excerpt)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A sizable minority of diabetic patients
who have an impaired pumping ability of their heart do not have any
symptoms, new research suggests.

As lead investigator Dr. Panithaya Chareonthaitawee, told Reuters
Health, one in every six diabetic patients who were assessed with
SPECT, a nuclear imaging test, showed a drop in left ventricular
ejection fraction (LVEF), which simply means the heart is pumping
abnormally low amounts of blood with each beat.

National guidelines, Chareonthaitawee added, indicate that "patients
who have reduced LVEF but not symptoms" can benefit from commonly used
blood pressure drugs called ACE inhibitors and beta-blockers. In
addition, the guidelines recommend that patients stop smoking and lose
weight.

As reported in the American Heart Journal, Chareonthaitawee and
colleagues at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, examined
records of 1,046 diabetic patients with no heart disease symptoms and
found that 16.7 percent had reduced LVEFs.

Kurt <kurtwheeling1965@hotmail.com> wrote:
> http://diabetes.org/diabetesnewsarti...healthEDIT.xml

> or

> http://tinyurl.com/2y2seq

> (excerpt)

> NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A sizable minority of diabetic patients
> who have an impaired pumping ability of their heart do not have any
> symptoms, new research suggests.

> As lead investigator Dr. Panithaya Chareonthaitawee, told Reuters
> Health, one in every six diabetic patients who were assessed with
> SPECT, a nuclear imaging test, showed a drop in left ventricular
> ejection fraction (LVEF), which simply means the heart is pumping
> abnormally low amounts of blood with each beat.

> National guidelines, Chareonthaitawee added, indicate that "patients
> who have reduced LVEF but not symptoms" can benefit from commonly used
> blood pressure drugs called ACE inhibitors and beta-blockers. In
> addition, the guidelines recommend that patients stop smoking and lose
> weight.

> As reported in the American Heart Journal, Chareonthaitawee and
> colleagues at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, examined
> records of 1,046 diabetic patients with no heart disease symptoms and
> found that 16.7 percent had reduced LVEFs.

I don't understand this at all, since the drugs mentioned don't
improve LVEF. I checked back to the article cited and it isn't any
clearer. Sounds to me like someone taking advantage of an advertising
opportunity.

--
Chris Malcolm cam@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]