Heart danger for diabetics treated with insulin

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

Diabetic patients with heart failure who use insulin face an increased mortality risk.
Many patients with heart failure also have diabetes. Some will be treated with insulin, others with oral medication. A team at the University of California, Los Angeles, now reveals that the nature of drug treatment can have a real impact on outcome for these patients.

A group of 554 patients with advanced heart failure was studied. The five year survival rate for non-diabetic patients was 89.7 per cent, compared to 85.8 per cent for patients who were diabetic but on drugs other than insulin. But the survival rate for diabetics treated with insulin was only 62.1 per cent. An interaction between heart failure, diabetes and insulin has been noted before - but this is the first time that the impact on mortality has been shown. It's now a priority to find out why insulin worsens the outcome like this. Meanwhile, doctors treating those with heart failure and diabetes need to consider carefully the strategy they use for keeping blood sugar in check.

Source
American Heart Journal January 2005