Health
Preventive measures for heart disease in diabetics
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Jan. 29, 2007
Joint guidelines from the American Diabetes Assn. and the American Heart Assn. promote more aggressive prevention and treatment of the risk factors that lead to heart disease, the primary killer of people with diabetes.
The new guidelines are in the Jan. 2/9 Circulation and the January Diabetes Care. In addition to lifestyle changes, including increased physical activity and weight loss, the guidelines call for increased interventions, such as use of statins, ACE inhibitors and other drugs to manage lipids, blood pressure and glucose levels in people with diabetes.
"Diabetes is a deadly disease, but the truth is that most people who have it will actually die from heart disease, its most common and, too often, fatal complication," said John Buse, MD, PhD, president-elect for medicine and science at the ADA, and a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2007/01/29/hlbf0129.htm.
