Diabetes mellitus is a strong, independent risk for atrial fibrillation and flutter in addition to other cardiovascular disease.
"Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a major risk factor for atherosclerosis. There is a controversy in literature about correlation between DM and atrial fibrillation," scientists in the United States report.
'M.R. Movahed and colleagues at the University California Irvine proposed, "The goal of this study was to evaluate DM as a risk factor for atrial fibrillation or flutter using a very large database. Patient treatment files (PTF) containing discharge diagnoses were utilized using ICD-9 codes of inpatient treatment from Veterans Health Administration Hospitals (VAH).
"Patients with type II DM (ICD-9 code 250.0) (293,124) discharged from the VAH between 1990 and 2000. Nonmatched controls without DM but with hypertension (552,624) were selected from the same PTF. By using multivariate logistic regressions, the occurrence of atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter, CHF, CAD and LVH was compared."
The investigators discovered, "Atrial fibrillations occurred in 43,674 (14.9%) DM patients vs. 57,077 (10.3%) in the control group (p<0.0001). Atrial flutter occurred in 11,852 (4%) of DM patients vs. 13,554 (2.5%) of the control group (p<0.0001). Using multivariant analysis, DM remained independently associated with atrial fibrillation with an OR of 2.13, (95% CI: 2.10 to 2.16; p<0.0001) and flutter(OR 2.20, CI: 2.15 to 2.26; p<0.0001)."
"Furthermore," they continued, "CHF (OR 3.12, CI: 3.09 to 3.16; p<0.0001), LVH (OR 1.85, CI: 1.77 to 1.92; p<0.0001) and CAD (OR 2.39, CI: 2.34 to 2.44; p<0.0001) were also independently associated with DM."
"This is the first large-scale study finding DNI as a strong, independent risk for the occurrence of atrial fibrillation and flutter and other cardiovascular disease," concluded the authors.
