An observational multi-ethnic study has shown that, following a first cardiovascular event, patients with type 2 diabetes have a shorter life expectancy than those with no known history of the condition.
When ethnicity was also compared, the biggest difference was observed in those from a White ethnic background where a shorter life expectancy of more than three and a half years was found.
A multidisciplinary team made up of epidemiologists, cardiologists, data analysts and physicians from the NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre, Leicester Real World Evidence Unit at the Leicester Diabetes Centre, the Department of Cardiovascular Science and the University of Oxford have highlighted a significantly different prognosis in cardiovascular disease (CVD) patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) vs those without following a non-fatal cardiovascular event.
Individuals with T2D are around two times more likely to develop CVD according to the study which aimed to assess the difference in prognosis for those with T2D following a non-fatal first event such as heart failure or a stroke.
The observational data study, published earlier this year in Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Disease, used information from Clinical Practice Research Datalink (a real-world research service) focusing on an eleven-year period between January 2007 and December 2017.
A population sample of 1,000,000 randomly selected patients was narrowed to 59,939 who had suffered a non-fatal cardiac event. This cohort was then divided into those with or without T2D and subsequently by ethnic background.
BRC affiliate and Epidemiologist at Leicester Diabetes Research Centre, Dr Yogini Chudasama, said “We found that the biggest difference in outcome was in participants from a White ethnic background, where we observed a reduced life expectancy of 3.87 years in those with T2D compared to people without the condition.
“Comparatively, we found no evidence of a difference in Black or South Asian patients with or without T2D following a non-fatal CVD event.”
The results also demonstrated that within White patients with a T2D diagnosis the mortality rate was increased by 53%.
They also found that regardless of T2D the average life expectancy of those who experienced a non-fatal event was approximately 7-8 years longer in patients from an ethnic minority background. This was attributed to contextual and lifestyle factors including diet.
Dr Chudasama said: “We hope that these findings will help to tailor public health strategies to reduce the risk of death and improve the secondary prevention of CVD events within the health sector.”
To read the full paper, please visit: Life expectancy following a cardiovascular event in individuals with and without type 2 diabetes: A UK multi-ethnic population-based observational study – Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases (nmcd-journal.com)
* Subjects in the study had to self-identify their ethnicity when data was collected