Antibiotics
Reduce CHD Risk in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes
Patients
with type 2 diabetes who are given fluoroquinolones in commonly
prescribed doses apparently have a reduced risk of developing coronary
heart disease.
That
according to Dutch researchers who reported in the October 15th issue
of the European Heart Journal.
Using a national
database covering 450,000 subjects, Dr. J. A. Erkens from the Utrecht
Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences, and colleagues, conducted a
nested case-control analysis of prior antibiotic use by 244 type 2
diabetics hospitalized for CHD and 686 type 2 diabetics without CHD.
There was a reduced risk
of CHD among those who used fluoroquinolones for more than 14 days
over the 3 prior years compared with those who had not used
fluoroquinolones (adjusted odds ratio 0.30), the researchers found.
Dr. Erkens' team notes
that tetracyclines, macrolides, and lincosamides, or any other
antibiotics were not associated with reduced risk for CHD in this
diabetic population.
Dr. Erkens and
colleagues conclude that "our results suggest that treatment with
fluoroquinolones in doses commonly prescribed in routine clinical
practice is associated with a reduction in the risk of CHD among
diabetes mellitus type 2 patients."
The benefit of
antibiotics in reducing the risk of CHD remains unclear and awaits the
results of several large clinical trials, Dr. F. Delahaye and
colleagues from Hopital Cardiovasculaire et Pneumologique, Lyon,
France, note in a journal editorial.
However, "Erkens'
work suggests that studies in primary prevention, perhaps in patients
without CHD, but with cardiovascular risk factors, such as diabetes
mellitus may also be worthwhile," they add. Eur
Heart J 2002;23:1557-1559,1575-1579.
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FACT
According
to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), somewhere near 75 percent of
the U.S. population fails to get 30 minutes of daily exercise, whether
that's walking or some more strenuous form of sport or recreation.
Approximately one-third live a life offically defined as sedentary.
