Reducing Enlarged Heart Cuts Diabetes Risk

Patients with high blood pressure, who are treated to prevent or reduce an enlarged heart may decrease their risk of diabetes, New York researchers found.

Physician-scientists at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York said high-blood-pressure patients treated for enlarged heart, or left ventricular hypertrophy, who have regression or prevention of left ventricular hypertrophy found a 38 percent reduced risk of developing diabetes for high-blood-pressure patients and a 26 percent reduced risk after adjusting for other risk factors for diabetes.

The study, published in Hypertension, used data from the Losartan Intervention for Endpoint Reduction in Hypertension study conducted between 1995 and 2001.

A healthy heart is a prerequisite for the health of the body as a whole. Our previous research has shown that treating enlarged heart in high-blood-pressure patients reduces the risk for a variety of cardiovascular conditions, Dr. Peter Okin, of Weill Cornell Medical College and attending physician at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell, said in a statement.

This new study finds an important new benefit — namely a better chance of avoiding diabetes among patients who exhibit a reduction of their hypertrophy during treatment.