Ethnic influences on diabetic heart problems

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

A new study using heart imaging shows the early effect of diabetes on the heart varies with ethnicity.
We already know that diabetes strongly increases the risk of heart failure, a condition that is linked with having an enlarged heart. A team at Wake Forest University has now used magnetic resonance imaging to assess the heart in a group of people with diabetes with different ethnic origins - white, African-American, Hispanic or Chinese. The study is known as the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) and is focused on measuring heart mass and the volume of the left ventricle (lower chamber) and other signs of early atherosclerosis, the thickening of the arteries that sets the scene for heart disease.

MESA revealed that whites tended to have increased left ventricular mass that could be explained by early atherosclerosis and high blood pressure. However, in African-Americans and Hispanics, these changes occurred but were not fully explicable in terms of these two factors. People of Chinese origin did not have differences in heart mass.

Lower volumes of the left ventricle, indicative of some stiffness in the heart muscle, were seen among whites, blacks and Chinese, but not Hispanic, participants. None of the participants actually had heart failure at this stage - although incidence of the condition is said to be similar among whites and African-Americans with diabetes and lower among Hispanics and Chinese with diabetes. The study will run to at least 2008 and will provide useful information on early signs of heart disease among diabetics which will help target preventive therapies.

Source
Diabetes Care March 2006

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