In response to an article published in the Lancet on 24 August, called Acute myocardial infarction and diabetes, which suggests that heart attack victims are at increased risk of diabetes, Professor Peter Weissberg, Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation (BHF) says:
?People with diabetes have an increased risk of suffering from heart attacks. For a long time, it has been thought that there?s something about having diabetes which causes problems with blood vessels around the heart that leads to a heart attack.
?This interesting paper turns this view on its head, showing instead that heart attack victims are at increased risk of developing diabetes. But this doesn?t necessarily mean that the heart attack causes the diabetes. A more probable explanation is that both diabetes and heart disease are caused by a common metabolism problem, which if not corrected, could lead to both illnesses.
?An important message in this paper is that lifestyle improvements such as losing weight, stopping smoking and exercising regularly, which we already know reduce the risk of heart disease, will also reduce the risk of developing diabetes. The message is clear – don’t smoke, stay slim and exercise regularly if you want to avoid both these unpleasant and deadly medical conditions.