• Arch Intern Med · Aug 2008

    Randomized Controlled Trial

    The hemoglobin A1c level as a progressive risk factor for cardiovascular death, hospitalization for heart failure, or death in patients with chronic heart failure: an analysis of the Candesartan in Heart failure: Assessment of Reduction in Mortality and Morbidity (CHARM) program.

    • Hertzel C Gerstein, Karl Swedberg, Jonas Carlsson, John J V McMurray, Eric L Michelson, Bertil Olofsson, Marc A Pfeffer, Salim Yusuf, and CHARM Program Investigators.
    • Department of Medicine and the Population Health Research Institute, McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. gerstein@mcmaster.ca
    • Arch Intern Med. 2008 Aug 11; 168 (15): 169917041699-704.

    BackgroundA progressive relationship between hemoglobin A(1c) (HbA(1c)) levels and cardiovascular (CV) events has been observed in persons with and without diabetes. To our knowledge, the nature of such a relationship in patients with symptomatic chronic heart failure (HF) has not been studied.MethodsA total of 2412 participants (907 with prior diabetes) in the Candesartan in Heart failure: Assessment of Reduction in Mortality and Morbidity (CHARM) program with at least 1 HbA(1c) level were followed up for a median of 34 months. The incidence of the primary outcome (CV death or HF hospitalization), CV death, and total mortality was calculated according to eighths of the usual HbA(1c) level ranging from 5.8% or less to greater than 8.6%. Adjusted and unadjusted hazard ratios per 1% rise in HbA(1c) levels were also calculated.ResultsA total of 99.6% of eligible participants were followed up until they developed an outcome or the study finished. The risk of the primary composite outcome, CV death, hospitalization for worsening HF, and total mortality rose progressively with higher levels of usual HbA(1c) (P for trend <.001). After age and sex were adjusted for, hazards of these outcomes per 1% higher HbA(1c) level were 1.25 (95% confidence interval [CI ], 1.20-1.31), 1.24 (95% CI, 1.17-1.31), 1.25 (95% CI, 1.19-1.31), and 1.22 (95% CI, 1.16-1.29), respectively. This relationship was evident in patients with and without diabetes and with reduced or preserved ejection fraction and persisted after adjustment for diabetes, other risk factors, and allocation to candesartan.ConclusionIn diabetic and nondiabetic patients with symptomatic chronic HF, the HbA(1c) level is an independent progressive risk factor for CV death, hospitalization for HF, and total mortality.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…