Favorable CV health in middle age may lower lifetime risk for type 2 diabetes
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New findings published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology highlighted the importance of favorable CV health among middle-aged individuals to prevent type 2 diabetes regardless of genetic disposition.
“As many of the cardiovascular risk factors also confer a larger risk for type 2 diabetes, previous studies have shown that the concept of CV health is also applicable to type 2 diabetes,” Kan Wang, MD, from the department of epidemiology at Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and colleagues wrote. “Yet, data on the lifetime risk of incident type 2 diabetes across different CV health categories are scarce. Moreover, whether the impact of CV health on lifetime risk of incident type 2 diabetes is affected by genetic predisposition remains unknown.”
Researchers used data from the Rotterdam Study, a prospective population-based study of 5,993 individuals (mean age, 69 years; 58% women) free of type 2 diabetes at baseline to calculate a CV health score based on BMI, BP, total cholesterol, smoking status, diet and physical activity. With this data, researchers categorized CV health and assessed type 2 diabetes genetic predisposition and divided participants into tertiles based on genetic risk score.
In the cohort, type 2 diabetes developed among 869 individuals during a median of 13 years of follow-up. By age 55 years, type 2 diabetes lifetime risk was 22.6% for those with favorable CV health, 28.3% for those with intermediate CV health and 32.6% for those with poor CV health. When stratifying by genetic risk score tertiles, compared with individuals with poor and intermediate CV health, type 2 diabetes lifetime risk remained lowest among those with favorable CV health in the lowest (21.5%), middle (20.8%) and highest (23.5%) genetic risk score tertiles.
These results remained similar in sensitivity analyses when researchers excluded individuals with prediabetes and those who were underweight at baseline.
“To reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, it is possible to act both on behavioral risk factors, through the lifestyle correction, and on biological risk factors, through pharmacological intervention and lifestyle correction, at a younger age,” Francesca Cortese, MD, from the department of cardiology at Giovanni Paolo II Hospital, Policoro, Matera, Italy, wrote in an accompanying editorial.
According to the editorial, through simple tools including education for a correct lifestyle, it is possible to significantly contribute to preventing type 2 diabetes and its complications.
“Efforts in this regard must be made not only by health professionals, but also and above all, by schools, including these issues in the ordinary education of children from the earliest years of age and at the level of advertising campaigns through the main communication channels,” Cortese wrote.
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