Calcium buildup test predicts diabetics who might be at risk for heart disease

It's widely known that diabetes can increase your risk for all sorts of health complications, heart disease being one of them.

But until recently, doctors haven't been incredibly effective at being able to predict which diabetic patients are most at risk for heart disease.

Calcium buildup study

Researchers at the Wake Forest School of Medicine found that using a coronary calcium scoring system--which measures the calcium buildup on the heart's arteries--could predict risk of early death in diabetics due to heart disease. A "0" score indicates there is no calcium buildup, and a score over 100 usually indicates than a person has heart disease. The researchers found that diabetics with the highest scores were 11 times more likely to die from heart disease than those with lower scores. The study analyzed 1,123 adults between the ages of 34-86 that had type 2 diabetes.


Having a score of 10-99 increased heart disease-related death risk by 2.93 percent, a score of 100-299 increased it by 3.17 percent and a score of 300-999 increased risk by about 4.41 percent.

Based on these findings, the authors believe medical professionals may be able to categorize diabetic patients due to how serious their heart disease risk may be.

The study was published in the journal Diabetes Care.

Source: Daily Rx


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