Diabetes associated with heightened risk of sudden cardiac death, Danish study finds
Sudden cardiac death was an important contributing factor to shortened life expectancy for patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, attributable to losses of 3.4 years and 2.7 years, respectively.
Patients with diabetes displayed consistently elevated rates of sudden cardiac death across age groups, although the elevation in risk relative to those without diabetes diminished with increasing age, a study found.
To estimate incidence of sudden cardiac death among individuals with type 1 or type 2 diabetes and to quantify the effect on life expectancy, researchers used death certificates, discharge summaries, and autopsy reports for the entire population of Denmark in 2010. Results were published Dec. 4 by European Heart Journal.
In 2010, there were 54,028 deaths, of which 6,862 (12.7%) were classified as sudden cardiac death. Among the identified cases, 97 had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and 1,149 with type 2. Researchers calculated that incidence of sudden cardiac death was 3.7 times higher in those with type 1 diabetes and 6.5 times higher in those with type 2 diabetes compared with the general population.
The greatest risk difference was observed in younger individuals with diabetes. Patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes had an average of 14.2 and 7.9 life-years lost, respectively, versus the general population, with 3.4 and 2.7 years attributable to sudden cardiac death.
The results suggest that there is a large potential gain from improving prevention of ventricular arrhythmia in patients with diabetes, according to the study authors. “The age at which [sudden cardiac death] occurs is an important consideration, and we show that this group has a significantly shortened life span compared with the background population,” they wrote.