"Why there should be such a profound difference between men and women with respect to how glucose affects mortality in the presence of atherosclerosis is a mystery that needs to be further pursued," Goodarzi said. "To date, we and colleagues we have consulted can offer no explanation."
"These large gender differences may have previously remained undetected because earlier studies looked either at men and women together or a younger, healthier group of men," said Port, whose study analyzed men and women with cardiovascular disease separately. "If you look at men and women combined, you get a highly distorted picture because they respond so differently."
Using extensive heart study data from the town of Framingham, Mass., collected every second year since 1948, Port and his co-authors performed a sophisticated statistical analysis, which made adjustments for factors such as the patients' cholesterol levels, blood pressure, cigarette smoking, body mass index and antihypertensive drug use. The researchers analyzed more than 1,200 people (686 men and 517 women), ages 45 to 74, diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. Because the researchers' statistical technique allowed them to take advantage of the fact that many patients were examined over multiple two-year periods, they report on more than 3,800 observations.
In a follow-up study, they are analyzing whether blood sugar levels are linked with death or development of cardiovascular disease in people who have not been diagnose
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Contact: Stuart Wolpert
swolpert@support.ucla.edu
310-206-0511
University of California - Los Angeles
13-Feb-2006