| Diabetes control shrinks enlarged
heart
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People with type 1 diabetes are prone
to develop enlargement of the left side of the heart, which can
lead to heart failure, but strict control of blood glucose levels
reverses this process, researchers report.
In the March issue of the International Journal of Cardiology,
a multicenter team led by Dr. Franz C Aepfelbacher of the Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, reports the results of a study
involving 19 adults with long-standing type 1 diabetes.
After a year of stringent glucose control, including weekly insulin
infusions for some participants, 12 of them had a significant reduction
in levels of glycosylated hemoglobin, a measure of long-term glucose
control.
In these 12 subjects, the thickness of the wall between the left
and right sides of the heart decreased from 10.3 to 9.4 millimeters
and the mass of the main left vessel of the heart "regressed
from 205 to 182 grams."
These dimensions were unchanged in the patients who did not achieve
improved control of glucose levels.
Ambulatory 24-hour blood pressure measurements did not change in
either group, so the researchers believe it is "unlikely"
that improvements in hypertension were the reason for the structural
changes they observed.
However, since little is known about the cause of diabetes-related
heart enlargement, "the principal mechanism for reduction of
left ventricular mass with glycemic control also remains speculative,"
Aepfelbacher's team writes.
SOURCE International Journal of Cardiology, March 2004.
Previous Diabetes
News 
|
