Takeaway
- Low iron status was found to be strongly associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).
- The association was consistent in patients at different CVD risk.
Why this matters
- Several studies have reported a positive association between increase in serum ferritin and incidence of T2DM.
- Finding suggests that low iron status is harmful to cardiovascular health in T2DM and it may be a target for intervention.
Study design
- Prevalence of coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and CVD was evaluated in the SIDIAP study (n=38,617) and their prevalence and 7-year incidence were studied in the Edinburgh Type 2 Diabetes Study (ET2DS; n=821).
- Funding: UK Medical Research Council; Pfizer.
Key results
- Mean follow-up duration was 6.1±1.7 years.
- Ferritin increase by 1 unit was associated with decreased CVD risk in the ET2DS study (OR, 0.81; P=.018) and SIDIAP study (OR, 0.91; P<.001).
- Inverse association was seen between serum ferritin and CVD after adjustment for all covariates in the ET2DS study (HR, 0.50; P=.031) and SIDIAP study (OR, 0.61; P<.001).
- After adjustments, ferritin was inversely associated with the development of CVD (HR, 0.46; P=.010) and it remained similar even after restricting the analyses to 536 people without prevalent CVD at baseline (HR, 0.34; P=.016).
Limitations
- Risk for bias.
References
References
