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  #1   ^
Old Tue, Mar-06-07, 12:09
Dodger's Avatar
Dodger Dodger is offline
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Plan: Paleoish/Keto
Stats: 225/167/175 Male 71.5 inches
BF:18%
Progress: 116%
Location: Longmont, Colorado
Default 'High normal' glucose levels may increase the risk of heart failure

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_relea...ha-en030607.php

American Heart Association rapid access journal report:

Fasting glucose levels may independently predict the risk of being hospitalized with congestive heart failure in heart attack survivors and others who are at high risk of developing the disorder, researchers reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Drawing on data from 31,546 high-risk patients participating in two international trials, researchers found that even small increases in fasting glucose raised the risk of congestive heart failure in both diabetes patients and those whose blood sugar fell within the normal range.

"This illustrates that blood glucose by itself is a continuous risk factor for developing heart failure because all of these patients were free of heart failure when they enrolled in the trials," said Claes Held, M.D., Ph.D., lead author of the study.

"However, these are only associations," said Held, an associate professor of cardiology at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. "They do not prove that elevated blood glucose causes heart failure. To demonstrate a causal relationship, you would have to do a study that showed lowering blood glucose levels would reduce the incidence of heart failure."

About 5.2 million Americans evenly divided between males and females suffer from heart failure, according to the American Heart Association. Each year about 550,000 new cases are diagnosed and about 57,700 people die from it. Heart failure is a debilitating condition in which the heart fails to pump an adequate supply of blood throughout the body. Established heart failure risks include uncontrolled high blood pressure, diabetes and heart attack.

To examine the relationship between blood glucose levels and congestive heart failure, Held and colleagues performed an interim analysis on the blinded data from the ONgoing Telmisartan Alone and in combination with the Ramipril Global Endpoint Trial (ONTARGET) and Telmisartan Randomized AssessmeNt Study in aCE iNtolerant subjects with cardiovascular Disease (TRANSCEND) trials. Both were randomized, controlled, parallel clinical studies testing drug regimens aimed at reducing fatal and nonfatal cardiovascular events. ONTARGET had 25,620 patients enrolled and TRANSCEND had 5,926, and both included patients with and without diabetes. Researchers obtained fasting blood glucose levels for patients when they entered the trials and periodically thereafter.

"We know that diabetes is a strong risk factor for cardiovascular disease including heart failure, but these studies included patients with and without diabetes," Held said. "This was a great opportunity to evaluate a broad population of high-risk individuals and study the association between blood glucose and cardiovascular disease, regardless of the diabetic state."

Patients in the two trials were average age 67 at entry, and 69 percent were men. Thirty-seven percent had been previously diagnosed with diabetes and 3.2 percent were diagnosed with the disease at the time of entry.

Patients were assigned to five groups based on their entry fasting blood glucose levels, measured in millimoles per liter of blood, or mmol/L. The lowest group had an average fasting blood glucose of 4.6 mmol/L and the highest had an average reading of 8.5 mmol/L.

The mmol/L is the international standard unit for measuring blood glucose. In the United States, blood glucose levels are usually reported in milligrams per deciliter, mg/dL. Multiplying the number of mmol/L by 18 converts the number to mg/dl.

Researchers analyzed data from patients with an average follow-up of 2.4 years. During this time there were:
  • 1,067 cardiovascular deaths
  • 926 heart attacks
  • 823 strokes
  • 668 hospitalizations for congestive heart failure
When the researchers examined fasting blood glucose levels alone as a risk factor by adjusting for other known risk factors, they found that, for all patients, an increase of 1 mmol/L above a patient's entry glucose level increased the risk of hospitalization for congestive heart failure by 5 percent.

Similarly, a 1 mmol/L rise increased the risk of congestive heart failure hospitalization or cardiovascular death by 9 percent for all patients, by 3 percent for patients without diabetes and by 5 percent for patients with diabetes.

"Even in the normal range, our results indicate that elevated blood glucose is associated with the risk of heart failure," Held said. "You can look at blood glucose much like blood pressure or cholesterol. Even if you have normal blood glucose, there is a gradual increase in risk wherever you start on the scale. If the blood sugar is "high normal" there is a higher risk than those with "low normal fasting blood glucose levels."

He and colleagues suggested several potential mechanisms for rising glucose levels which increase the risk of developing congestive heart failure.

"Individuals with disturbances in their glucose regulation usually have more coronary artery disease, which is a well known underlying risk factor for heart failure," Held said. "That is a strong explanation for our findings but the others are more speculative and hypothetical."
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  #2   ^
Old Tue, Mar-06-07, 16:12
Enomarb Enomarb is offline
MAINTAINING ON CALP
Posts: 4,838
 
Plan: CALP/CAHHP
Stats: 180/125/150 Female 65 in
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Default

Thanks, Mike. This is scary!
E
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  #3   ^
Old Wed, Mar-07-07, 09:07
cs_carver cs_carver is offline
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Plan: Generic LC with tweaks
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Location: NC
Default Why is this a surprise?

I find it interesting more that this fact had to be confirmed. Seems pretty obvious--the more sugar you have in your system, the more trouble you have. There's not some "safe" threshold below which you can bop around risk-free.
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  #4   ^
Old Wed, Mar-07-07, 09:11
Whoa182's Avatar
Whoa182 Whoa182 is offline
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Plan: CRON / Zone
Stats: 118/110/110 Male 5ft 7"
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Default

How low do you think is safe without causing any adverse affects?

Currently, my latest fasting glucose tested in the lab was 77mg/dl. I try to get it down to around 70 or so. hopefully that won't make me feel bad lol.
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  #5   ^
Old Wed, Mar-07-07, 10:14
cs_carver cs_carver is offline
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Plan: Generic LC with tweaks
Stats: 204/178/165 Female 72 inches
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Default Well, there's always dead

Quote:
Originally Posted by Whoa182
How low do you think is safe without causing any adverse affects?


Presuming normal physiology (which may be a stretch for some of us), we shouldn't ever get too low--that's the liver's job. But it's not something I want to play with, because too low is one of those quick killers--you lose consciousness, fall over, smack your head on something on the way down, and we never know what happens.

Lots of bio. processes work that way--too high kills you slowly, with a fair number of warnings; too low and you're dead before you know it.

As long as you're working toward lowering blood glucose through diet and exercise, you will probably be ok. I would be very careful of using additional supplements, though, because it's just not pretty.

IMO, the worst case would be if low blood glucose didn't actually kill me, but left me out there in the grey areas inbetween here and dead.

YMMV.
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  #6   ^
Old Wed, Mar-07-07, 13:30
Nancy LC's Avatar
Nancy LC Nancy LC is offline
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Plan: DDF
Stats: 202/185.4/179 Female 67
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Default

Well... people don't usually fall too low unless they've got T1 diabetes and OD on insulin. You do get lots of warning messages on the too low end, sweating, hunger, the shakes, dizziness, etc. The only time I've ever heard of a non-diabetic getting really sick with low blood sugar was he had a basketball sized tumour that was consuming HUGE amounts of glucose and he'd wake up in the middle of the night with major low blood sugar, like around 35 or 40. It nearly killed him.
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  #7   ^
Old Wed, Mar-07-07, 15:51
kebaldwin kebaldwin is offline
Thank you Dr Atkins!
Posts: 4,146
 
Plan: Atkins induction
Stats: 311/250/220 Male 6 feet
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Location: North Carolina
Default

No surprise.

High blood pressure, hardening of the arteries, clots, circulatory problems, heart attack and stroke are all symptoms of Type 2 diabetes / pre type 2 diabetes / syndrome x / metabolic syndrome.
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