Lifestyle Counseling Frequency, CV Outcomes Linked in Diabetes

For hyperglycemic adults with diabetes, a higher frequency of lifestyle counseling is associated with a lower incidence of a composite outcome of death and cardiovascular events, according to a study published online in Diabetes Care.

Huabing Zhang, M.D., from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in Beijing, and colleagues conducted a retrospective study of hyperglycemic adults with diabetes treated at primary care practices between 2000 and 2014 to examine the correlation between frequency of lifestyle counseling and a composite outcome of death and cardiovascular events. The frequency of counseling was identified using natural language processing of electronic notes.

The researchers found that the 10-year cumulative incidence of the primary outcome (time to the first cardiovascular event [myocardial infarction, stroke, hospitalization for angina] or death as a result of any cause) was 33.0 percent among patients with monthly counseling or more compared with 38.1 percent of those who had counseling less than monthly. A higher frequency of lifestyle counseling correlated with a significantly lower incidence of the primary outcome in multivariable analysis (hazard ratio, 0.88).

"Further research is needed to confirm the causal nature of this relationship and to establish characteristics of lifestyle counseling that might have particularly strong effects on these important outcomes," the authors write.

One author disclosed financial ties to the biopharmaceutical industry.

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