• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Diabetes and Heart Associations Reinforce Joint Commitment to Preventing Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes

Posted on: Monday, 26 June 2006, 18:00 CDT

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 26 /PRNewswire/ -- In a joint statement released today, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and American Heart Association (AHA) are calling for greater prevention and treatment efforts to stem the continuous rise in diabetes and in the numerous cardiovascular-related deaths that relate to inadequately recognized and under-treated risk factors. Published concurrently in Diabetes Care and in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association the statement sets forth a proactive collaborative challenge to health care providers to assess their patients' risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes more comprehensively to more effectively reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.

The groups are in "100 percent agreement that more can be done by professionals and patients alike to better understand, anticipate, prevent and manage the commonalities and co-occurrence of diabetes and cardiovascular disease," said Robert A. Rizza, M.D., President, Medicine & Science, American Diabetes Association.

"The importance of identifying a core set of risk factors such as pre- diabetes and diabetes, pre-hypertension and hypertension, dyslipidemia and obesity cannot be overstated," said Robert H. Eckel, M.D., President of the American Heart Association. "It is long past time to start getting these risk factors under control through lifestyle changes and medication. It's not as if we don't know how. The research is there."

ADA and AHA recognize that a significant volume of scientific research has contributed to a better understanding of how the clustering of metabolic abnormalities may impact the cardiovascular disease risks of patients.

"A patient with any cardiometabolic risk factor must be assessed for all others. Either being overweight, having an elevated blood pressure, abnormal glucose level, or any altered lipid value, requires a comprehensive CVD/diabetes risk assessment. And certainly let's not forget to greatly encourage smokers to stop," said Richard Kahn, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of the American Diabetes Association.

Rose Marie Robertson, M.D., Chief Science Officer of the American Heart Association, went on to indicate that "the steady rise in obesity and overweight in the United States over the past several decades has reached such overwhelming proportions that it now threatens to undermine our hard-won gains in preventing and controlling such chronic illnesses as heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Addressing this issue as well as the overall risk of each individual patient is critical to the health of the public."

The Diabetes Prevention Program, a landmark clinical trial conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with the support of the American Diabetes Association, found that people at high risk for diabetes could prevent the disease from progressing through lifestyle changes such as losing weight and increasing physical activity. Weight loss of just 5 percent-7 percent, or 10-15 lbs of total body weight, coupled with moderate physical activity most days of the week was sufficient to halt or delay progression of the disease during the course of the study. Overweight and obesity, along with physical inactivity, can also lead to heart disease.

"We have the medical and scientific knowledge to save millions of lives -- we need to start putting that knowledge to work in a clinical setting," said Rizza of ADA.

Diabetes Care, published by the American Diabetes Association, is the leading peer-reviewed journal of clinical research into the nation's fifth leading cause of death by disease. Diabetes also is a leading cause of heart disease and stroke, as well as the leading cause of adult blindness, kidney failure and non-traumatic amputations. For more information about diabetes, visit the American Diabetes Association Web site http://www.diabetes.org/ or call 1-800-DIABETES (1-800-342-2383).

Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association is the world's leading journal of cardiovascular medicine. It is unparalleled in its reach and depth of reporting on original contributions of scientific excellence relevant to cardiovascular disease and presents peer-reviewed reports on clinical and laboratory research relevant to cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of Americans. For more information on cardiovascular disease, visit americanheart.org or call 1 (800) AHA-USA1 or 1 (800) 242-8721.

American Diabetes Association

CONTACT: Elizabeth Magsig of the American Diabetes Association,+1-703-549-1500, ext. 2146, or Bridgette McNeill of the American HeartAssociation, +1-214-706-1135

Web site: http://www.diabetes.org/http://www.americanheart.org/

Source: PRNewswire

More News in this Category