CHARLESTON, W.VA. — Ischemic heart disease patients with comorbid diabetes start cardiac rehabilitation programs at a disadvantage: They have less lung power than nondiabetic heart disease patients do, according to a poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation.
To identify possible deficits in oxygen consumption among diabetic heart disease patients, Bradly Chapman, an exercise physiologist at the University of Toledo, Ohio, and his colleagues measured peak oxygen consumption in 76 diabetic and 114 nondiabetic adults at the start of a standard cardiac rehabilitation program.
The researchers assessed the patients using a motorized treadmill and determined peak oxygen consumption (VO2) by using the highest recorded measurement based on an average of every 5–7 breaths. The diabetic and nondiabetic groups were matched for age and weight, and the heart disease diagnoses were not significantly different between the two groups.
The mean peak VO2 of the diabetic patients was found to be 17.2 mL/kg per minute, compared with 20.2 mL/kg per minute for the nondiabetic patients, a significant difference.
Previous studies have shown that exercise training should be encouraged in cardiac patients with diabetes because it not only improves aerobic capacity but also promotes better diabetes management, the researchers wrote. The findings that the diabetic patients had a lower oxygen capacity suggest that exercise training could have an even greater clinical benefit for diabetic coronary patients than it does for nondiabetic patients, they said.
The researchers did not reassess the patients at the end of the rehabilitation program. But the study supports previous findings that peak oxygen consumption tends to be lower in diabetic heart disease patients than in nondiabetic patients.