Young-onset T2D tied to elevated risk of heart failure hospitalization

Individuals who received a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes (T2D) at a young age appear to have a disproportionately increased risk of hospitalization for heart failure (HF), according to a study.

Researchers used administrative health databases from Ontario, Canada, and identified 743,053 adults who had T2D and had no prior HF and 2,199,539 T2D-free adults (control) matched based on birth year and sex. Cox proportional hazards analysis was used to estimate the association between age at T2D diagnosis and incident HF hospitalization.

The mean age of the study cohort was 58.3 years, and 47.2 percent were women. Given the matching design, the mean age and sex distribution of T2D cases and controls were similar. People with young‐onset T2D (age at diagnosis <40 years) and usual‐onset T2D (age at diagnosis ≥40 years) were more likely to be in the lowest income quintile and have hypertension compared with matched individuals without diabetes.

Over 8.9 years of follow-up, 126,241 incident cases of HF hospitalization were documented. Relative to T2D-free individuals, those with young-onset T2D were at higher risk of HF hospitalization than those with usual-onset T2D (hazard ratio [HR] at age 30 years, 6.94, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 6.54–7.36; HR at age 60 years, 2.50, 95 percent CI, 2.45–2.56).

The association was slightly attenuated in an analysis further adjusted for mediators including hypertension, coronary artery disease, and chronic kidney disease (rate ratio [RR] at age 30 years, 6.39, 95 percent CI, 5.76–7.08; RR at age 60 years, 2.65, 95 percent CI, 2.54–2.76).