Diabetes Metab J.  2016 Jun;40(3):202-210. 10.4093/dmj.2016.40.3.202.

Severe Hypoglycemia and Cardiovascular or All-Cause Mortality in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

• Cha SA
• Yun JS
• Lim TS
• Hwang S
• Yim EJ
• Song KH
• Yoo KD
• Park YM
• Ahn YB
• Ko SH

• KMID: 2308628
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4093/dmj.2016.40.3.202

Abstract

BACKGROUND
We investigated the association between severe hypoglycemia (SH) and the risk of cardiovascular (CV) or all-cause mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes.
METHODS
The study included 1,260 patients aged 25 to 75 years with type 2 diabetes from the Vincent Type 2 Diabetes Resgistry (VDR), who consecutively enrolled (n=1,260) from January 2000 to December 2010 and were followed up until May 2015 with a median follow-up time of 10.4 years. Primary outcomes were death from any cause or CV death. We investigated the association between the CV or all-cause mortality and various covariates using Cox proportional hazards regression analysis.
RESULTS
Among the 906 participants (71.9%) who completed follow-up, 85 patients (9.4%) had at least one episode of SH, and 86 patients (9.5%) died (9.1 per 1,000 patient-years). Patients who had died were older, had a longer duration of diabetes and hypertension, received more insulin, and had more diabetic microvascular complications at baseline, as compared with surviving patients. The experience of SH was significantly associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality (hazard ratio [HR], 2.64; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.39 to 5.02; P=0.003) and CV mortality (HR, 6.34; 95% CI, 2.02 to 19.87; P=0.002) after adjusting for sex, age, diabetic duration, hypertension, mean glycosylated hemoglobin levels, diabetic nephropathy, lipid profiles, and insulin use.
CONCLUSION
We found a strong association between SH and increased risk of all-cause and CV mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Keyword

Cardiovascular diseases; Diabetes mellitus, type 2; Mortality; Severe hypoglycemia

MeSH Terms

Cardiovascular Diseases
Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2
Diabetic Nephropathies
Follow-Up Studies
Hemoglobin A, Glycosylated
Humans
Hypertension
Hypoglycemia*
Insulin
Mortality*
Insulin

Figure

• 

  Fig. 1 Cumulative overall survival and cumulative cardiovascular event-free survival of patients with severe hypoglycemia (SH) estimated by Cox regression analysis. (A) Overall survival after SH. (B) Cardiovascular event-free survival after SH. CI, confidence interval.

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