The Crucial Significance of Lifestyle Changes

Any change towards a healthier lifestyle, even if it seems small, can have a great impact, particularly in patients with diabetes. These changes are never too late. In consequence, as physicians, we should always be attentive and never stop encouraging patients to adopt them.

La trascendental importancia de los cambios en el estilo de vidaPatients with diabetes who make changes to their lifestyle, such as eating healthy or becoming physically active, are at a lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease or even dying from cardiovascular causes than diabetic patients who fail to incorporate these healthy habits. The other piece of good news in this article that was recently published in J Am Coll Cardiol is that it is never too late to change.

 

Lifestyle modification is one of the fundamental aspects of diabetes management and adopting healthy behaviors is associated with a reduction in the risk of cardiometabolic diseases and mortality in the general population.


Read also: Are Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Screening Programs Overstated?


This analysis included 11,527 patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes who were followed up for 13.3 years. During that period, there were 2311 cardiovascular events.

 

The modifiable lifestyle factors registered included a healthy eating index score, smoking status (never, past, current), physical activity (≥150 minutes/week of moderate activity), and low-risk alcohol consumption (5-15 g/day for women and 5-30 g/day for men).


Read also: Urgent/Emergent TAVR: A Valid Option.


For those who adopted at least one of these low-risk lifestyle behaviors, there was a 38% reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease compared with individuals who made no lifestyle changes. Of course, there was a gradient; the greater the change, the lower the risk. For those who adopted 3 or more lifestyle behaviors, the reduction in risk was even greater (hazard ratio [HR]: 0.48; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.40 to 0.59). Among individuals who changed the most, the reduction in risk entailed a reduction in mortality (HR: 0.32; 95% CI: 0.22-0.47) compared to those who made no change at all.

 

Conclusion

In patients with type 2 diabetes, the greater the adherence to a healthy lifestyle, the lower the incidence of cardiovascular disease and cardiovascular death. These findings support the enormous benefits of making lifestyle changes and the importance of medical advice for all of our patients.

 

Original title: Influence of Lifestyle on Incident Cardiovascular Disease and Mortality in Patients with Diabetes Mellitus.

Reference: Liu G et al. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2018;71:2867-2876.


Subscribe to our weekly newsletter

Get the latest scientific articles on interventional cardiology

We are interested in your opinion. Please, leave your comments, thoughts, questions, etc., below. They will be most welcome.

More articles by this author

TCT 2024 | FAVOR III EUROPA

The study FAVOR III EUROPA, a randomized trial, included 2,000 patients with chronic coronary syndrome, or stabilized acute coronary syndrome, and intermediate lesions. 1,008...

TCT 2024 – ECLIPSE: Randomized Study of Orbital Atherectomy vs Conventional PCI in Severely Calcified Lesions

Coronary calcification is associated with stent under-expansion and increased risk of both early and late adverse events. Atherectomy is an essential tool for uncrossable...

TCT 2024 | Use of Drug-Coated Balloons for Side Branch Treatment in Provisional Stenting

In some cases, treating coronary bifurcations with provisional stenting requires side branch stenting, which may lead to suboptimal outcomes. Drug-coated balloons (DCBs) have emerged...

TCT 2024 | Use of Artificial Intelligence for Patients with Suspected Coronary Artery Disease

The current approach to chest pain mainly focuses on symptom characteristics, conducting functional tests for ischemia assessment. However, several randomized clinical trials have shown...

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Related Articles

SOLACI Sessionsspot_img

Recent Articles

TCT 2024 | FAVOR III EUROPA

The study FAVOR III EUROPA, a randomized trial, included 2,000 patients with chronic coronary syndrome, or stabilized acute coronary syndrome, and intermediate lesions. 1,008...

TCT 2024 | TRISCEND II

This randomized study included 400 patients; 267 were treated with EVOQUE valve and 133 with optimal medical treatment (OMT). After one-year follow-up, there were no...

TCT 2024 – ACCESS-TAVI: Comparing Percutaneous Access Closure Strategies After TAVI

Vascular access complications following transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) remain common. However, few studies compare vascular access closure methods.  Based on the CHOICE-CLOSURE and MASH...