Patients with heart disease should be screened for diabetes repeatedly, European experts said today.
Today is World Diabetes Day and the European Society of Cardiology says detection of diabetes in heart patients is often forgotten.
Problems such as obesity, lack of fitness and poor diet can trigger heart disease before they trigger diabetes, experts warn. But diabetes can follow shortly afterwards.
One European study found diabetes in 25% of heart disease patients – even though they had been tested for glucose tolerance earlier.
Professor Hans Erik Botker, from Aarhus University Hospital, Skejby, Denmark, said: "This is the reverse of what we usually think.
"And it also needs to be remembered that not only should we be checking patients who have suffered an Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) for diabetes, but also there is a need to check everyone diagnosed with stable Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) as they are also at increased risk.”
Professor Keith Fox, from Edinburgh University, UK, added: “When patients have both diabetes and coronary artery disease the problem is that risk factors aren’t just simple additives, they multiply each other putting patients at greater risk of a worse outcome for both conditions."
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