Lee G, et al. - Researchers looked at a representative large population and focused on the link between changes in fasting serum glucose and incident cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality. They found that, in a non-diabetic population, increasing fasting glucose was related to increased risks of myocardial infarction (MI), stroke, and all-cause mortality.

Methods

• Data from a retrospective cohort of the Korean National Health Insurance Service was analyzed.
• Study participants included 260,487 Korean adults aged over 40 years without diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease at baseline.
• Fasting glucose status was categorized as normal fasting glucose (NFG, fasting glucose: < 100 mg/dL), impaired fasting glucose (IFG, fasting glucose: 100.0–125.9 mg/dL), and diabetic fasting glucose (DFG, fasting glucose: ≥ 126.0 mg/dL)
• Cox proportional hazards regression analyses were performed in the changed group vs the persistently unchanged group (i.e. NFG to NFG or IFG to IFG) in order to obtain the hazards ratio (HR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) for subsequent median 8-year MI, stroke, and all-cause mortality.

Results

• An increased risk of stroke was noted for individuals who shifted from NFG to DFG (HR [95% CI]: 1.19 [1.02–1.38]).
• Those who shifted from NFG to IFG or DFG saw increased risks of all-cause mortality (HR [95% CI]: 1.08 [1.02–1.14] for NFG to IFG, and 1.56 [1.39–1.75] for NFG to DFG) vs individuals with persistent NFG.
• Participants who shifted from IFG to DFG had an increased risk of MI and all-cause mortality (HR [95% CI]: 1.65 [1.20–2.27] and 1.16 [1.02–1.33], respectively) vs individuals with persistent IFG.