Diabetics on Beta-Blockers and Intensive Glycemic Therapy Have Fewer CV Events

By David Douglas

Intensive glycemic therapy is associated with reduced cardiovascular event rates in type 2 diabetes patients receiving treatment with beta-blockers, according to Japanese researchers.

However, as Dr. Tetsuro Tsujimoto told Reuters Health by email, "Further studies are needed to evaluate whether the use of beta blockers in diabetes patients shows beneficial or adverse effects."

Dr. Tsujimoto of the National Center for Global Health and Medicine, Tokyo, and colleagues conducted a post hoc analysis of data on more than 10,000 participants in the North American ACCORD study. Their findings were published online July 26 in Diabetes Care.
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The team assessed the risks of cardiovascular events, all-cause death, and cardiovascular death in the more than 3,000 diabetes patients receiving beta blockers compared to the more than 7,000 not receiving such treatment.

In patients receiving beta blockers, the cumulative cardiovascular event rates were significantly lower with intensive glycemic therapy than with standard therapy (hazard ratio, 0.81). The corresponding difference was not significant in patients not receiving beta blockers (HR, 0.92).

Nevertheless, the cumulative event rates for all-cause and cardiovascular deaths in patients receiving beta blockers were not significantly different between the standard therapy and intensive therapy groups.

In patients not receiving beta blockers, the event rates were significantly higher with intensive therapy. For all-cause death the hazard ratio was 1.25 and for cardiovascular death it was 1.43.

The researchers concede that among study limitations is "that we could not assess whether the different types of beta-blockers, such as cardioselective and nonselective beta-blockers, had similar effects on cardiovascular events and death."

"Another study is needed to confirm these results," they add. "However, we believe that the current study provides extremely important information regarding glycemic control and diabetes management."

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2aYKP4q

Diabetes Care 2016.

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