Endocrine Today: Diabetes drugs now ‘pillars of care’ for heart failure

Heart failure and type 2 diabetes are exquisitely intertwined. Their shared pathophysiology can accelerate debilitating outcomes for patients that clinicians struggle to prevent and treat.

People with type 2 diabetes are two to four times more likely to develop heart failure (HF) than a person without type 2 diabetes, according to data from the American Heart Association (AHA). But HF itself is also a risk factor for type 2 diabetes, with insulin resistance often the mechanism linking the two.

Dr. Mikhail Kosiborod, vice president for research and Ben McCallister, MD, Endowed Chair in Cardiovascular Research at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute, and professor of medicine at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, talked to Endocrine Today, about diabetes research. 

“The outcomes for people with HF with preserved ejection fraction are nearly as poor as those with HF with reduced ejection fraction," said Kosiborod. “Risk for death or hospitalization is very high, and quality of life is very poor. The pathophysiology of HFpEF is different than HFrEF, but the symptoms are frequently very similar.”

“We built our own cardiometabolic center 2.5 years ago, and the results in terms of quality improvement were so compelling that we have started a national organization — the Cardiometabolic Center Alliance — helping other health care organizations build their own centers of excellence,” Kosiborod said. “I hope this process continues to accelerate. We just can’t wait for decades for efficacious therapies to be adopted in practice, especially for highly morbid conditions like heart failure.”

Read the full article in Endocrine Today: Diabetes drugs now ‘pillars of care’ for heart failure