Sodium Intake, Cardiovascular Disease Linked in Diabetes

For patients with type 2 diabetes, high dietary sodium intake is associated with an elevated risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), researchers reported online ahead of print in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Chika Horiakwa, RD, from the University of Niigata Prefecture Faculty of Human Life Studies in Japan, and colleagues examined the correlation between dietary sodium intake and incidence of complications of diabetes in a nationwide cohort. A total of 1,588 patients aged 40 to 70 years with a hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) level of 6.5% or higher responded to a dietary survey and were included in analyses.

Compared with subjects in the first quartile of sodium intake, those in the second, third, and fourth quartiles had a significant 1.70, 1.47, and 2.0 times increased risk of CVD, respectively, after adjusting for potential confounders. Among patients who had an HbA1c level of 9.0% or higher, those in the highest quartile of sodium intake had a nearly 10-fold increased risk of CVD than those in the bottom quartile compared with patients who had an HbA1c level below 9.0%.

Additionally, results showed that overt nephropathy, diabetic retinopathy, and all-cause mortality were not significantly associated with sodium intake, according to the report.

“Findings suggested that high dietary sodium intake is associated with elevated incidence of CVD in patients with type 2 diabetes and that there is a synergistic effect between hemoglobin A1c values and dietary sodium intake for the development of CVD,” the researchers concluded.