MONDAY, Jan. 28 (HealthDay News) -- Patients with type 2 diabetes with controlled systolic blood pressure (SBP) or low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) have significantly lower rates of hospitalization for cardiovascular disease (CVD), especially when both risk factors are controlled, according to research published online Jan. 28 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Gregory A. Nichols, Ph.D., of the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore., and colleagues studied the association between the risk of hospitalization due to CVD and the control of glycosylated hemoglobin (A1C), SBP, and LDL-C in 26,636 patients with type 2 diabetes.

After an mean follow-up of 5.6 years, the researchers found that the highest rate of hospitalization for CVD was seen for patients with no controlled risk factors (18.2/1,000 person-years) or only A1C in control (16.9/1,000 person-years). The lowest rates of CVD hospitalization were seen in those with all three risk factors controlled (7.2/1,000 person-years) or with both SBP and LDL-C controlled (6.1/1,000 person-years).

"In summary, we found that maintaining SBP <130 mm Hg or LDL-C <100 mg/dL over a mean follow-up of approximately six years was significantly associated with reduced risk of CVD hospitalization. The effect was especially strong when both of these risk factors were well controlled," the authors write. "Maintaining A1C <7 percent in an already well-controlled population was not associated with CVD hospitalization risk reduction."

Two authors disclosed financial ties to AstraZeneca, which funded the study together with Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Abstract
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