Doctors’ critical role in the connection between diabetes and heart disease
By Dr. Omar M. Lattouf
One in 10 Americans lives with type 2 diabetes. Among many communities, diabetes is downplayed as “having a little sugar” and, with long family histories with the disease, dismissed as an inevitability.
The disease is far more dangerous than most realize. Diabetes doesn’t merely put patients at risk of shock, limb amputation, and obesity. Patients with diabetes are up to four times more likely to die of heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, than their non-diabetic peers.
Many people who have had diabetes for years unfortunately learn of the risks of heart disease and stroke only after having an attack. We must do more to raise patients’ awareness of the connection between these deadly ailments and empower them to lessen their risks. Right now, two in three people with diabetes don’t realize that heart disease is their most probable cause of death.
If more people knew about the risks, they could take preventative action. Ninety-nine percent of individuals with diabetes report that such knowledge would lead them to seek remedies.
Type 2 diabetes prevents the body from efficiently producing insulin, a hormone that regulates the amount of sugar in the blood. As a result, patients’ blood sugar levels can swing wildly.
Elevated blood sugar levels damage blood vessels over time, stiffening them and degrading the elasticity necessary for efficient circulation. That’s a deadly recipe for heart attacks.
Further, African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians have a 50 to 100 percent higher rate of illness and death from diabetes than white Americans. This higher diabetes rate could help explain why these populations are notably more likely to die of heart disease.
Many people with diabetes aren’t doing enough to prevent heart disease. About half of adults with diabetes do not meet recommended blood sugar, blood pressure, or LDL cholesterol levels. Given the knowledge and tools we have to address these risk factors, the cardiovascular toll of diabetes should be decreasing. Instead, it’s on the rise.
Part of the challenge is that even physicians aren’t fully informed about the connection between diabetes and heart disease. There are “educational gaps in physicians’ knowledge” of diabetes that prevent them from making informed treatment recommendations to patients. While focusing on controlling glucose levels in the blood is important, that alone may not protect people with diabetes from heart disease.
A good start is more closely monitoring and managing patients’ blood fats, including cholesterol levels. Studies show that patients with high LDL cholesterol levels are more likely to develop heart disease. Doctors can recommend these patients change their diets, increase their physical activity, or prescribe cholesterol-lowering drugs.
Physicians should also closely monitor patients for high blood pressure. Hypertensive diabetics are twice as likely to develop heart disease compared to those without high blood pressure.
Doctors cannot stand by as heart disease and diabetes ravage our country. By better understanding the link between these conditions and educating patients about that connection, physicians can play a leading role in combating these costly, coexisting, and chronic conditions.
Dr. Omar M. Lattouf is a professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Emory University School of Medicine.
The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.
How to submit an article, guest opinion piece, or letter to the editor to The Independent
Do you have something to say? Want your voice to be heard by thousands of readers? Send The Independent your letter to the editor or guest opinion piece. All submissions will be considered for publication by our editorial staff. If your letter or editorial is accepted, it will run on suindependent.com, and we’ll promote it through all of our social media channels. We may even decide to include it in our monthly print edition. Just follow our simple submission guidelines and make your voice heard:
—Submissions should be between 300 and 1,500 words.
—Submissions must be sent to editor@infowest.com as a .doc, .docx, .txt, or .rtf file.
—The subject line of the email containing your submission should read “Letter to the editor.”
—Attach your name to both the email and the document file (we don’t run anonymous letters).
—If you have a photo or image you’d like us to use and it’s in .jpg format, at least 1200 X 754 pixels large, and your intellectual property (you own the copyright), feel free to attach it as well, though we reserve the right to choose a different image.
—If you are on Twitter and would like a shout-out when your piece or letter is published, include that in your correspondence and we’ll give you a mention at the time of publication.
Articles related to “Doctors’ critical role in the connection between diabetes and heart disease”
The diabetes-heart connection: Getting to the heart of America’s diabetes crisis
Simple and sustainable ways to become a healthier you in 2019
