Study objectives: To investigate in older persons whether diabetes mellitus is an independent risk factor for congestive heart failure (CHF).
Design: A prospective study was performed in 2,737 older persons investigating the incidence of new CHF in persons with and without diabetes mellitus.
Setting: A long-term health-care facility.
Patients: Eight hundred sixty-five men and 1,872 women, with a mean age of 81+/-9 years.
Measurements and results: At 43-month follow-up, new CHF developed in 272 of 690 persons (39%) with diabetes mellitus and in 467 of 2,047 persons (23%) without diabetes mellitus (p < 0.0001). Cox regression analysis showed that age (p = 0.0001, risk ratio = 1.048), hypertension (p = 0.0001, risk ratio = 2.524), coronary artery disease (p = 0.0001, risk ratio = 4.008), male gender (p = 0.0001, risk ratio = 1.399), and diabetes mellitus (p = 0.0003, risk ratio = 1.337) were significantly positively associated with the time to the development of CHF.
Conclusions: Older persons with diabetes mellitus had a 1.3 times higher chance of developing CHF than those without diabetes mellitus after controlling the confounding effects of other prognostic variables.