Diabetes and heart failure in women

Diabetes triples the likelihood of heart failure in postmenopausal women with coronary heart disease. For many years, clinicians and researchers thought of heart failure as a disease of men. But recent studies indicate that women get heart failure to the same extent as men. The lifetime risk in both sexes is 1 in 5.To understand the risk factors for heart failure in women with coronary heart disease, the researchers analysed data from 2391 postmenopausal women who were followed for an average of 6.3 years. The nine predictors of heart failure were diabetes, atrial fibrillation, heart attack, impaired kidney function, high blood pressure, current smoking, obesity, conduction disturbances and left-sided heart enlargement.

The presence of diabetes tripled the risk of heart failure. The annual rate of heart failure was 8 per cent in obese women. It was 13 per cent in diabetic women with kidney impairment.Many risk factors uncovered were the same as those seen in men. But the risk seen with diabetes was particularly striking. It was a bigger risk factor than having multiple heart attacks, which is most significant risk factor in men.

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