ARIC data mined for infections in those with diabetes
The team analyzed data from the ongoing U.S. community-based Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study.
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute–sponsored cohort was comprised of adults aged 45-64 years from four U.S. communities, recruited between 1987 and 1989 for clinical examinations, medical interviews, and laboratory tests, repeated over five more visits up to 2018-2019.
For the current analysis, the team included 12,739 individuals with a mean age of 54.5 years, of whom 54.3% were female and 24.7% were Black.
Patients were defined as having diabetes if their baseline fasting blood glucose was greater than or equal to 7 mmol/L, or nonfasting glucose was greater than or equal to 11.1 mmol/l, they self-reported a diagnosis of diabetes by a physician, or they were taking glucose-lowering medication at the first study visit. The researchers weren’t able to distinguish between type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
In total, 1,485 individuals had diabetes at baseline. They were more likely to be older, Black, have a low socioeconomic status, and have worse cardiometabolic health than participants without diabetes.
Over an average follow-up of 23.8 years, there were 4,229 incident hospitalizations for infection, at an overall rate of 15.9 per 1,000 person-years.
Individuals with diabetes at baseline had a higher rate of hospitalizations than those without, at 25.4 per 1,000 person-years versus 15.2 per 1,000 person-years.
After taking into account sociodemographic characteristics, socioeconomic status, and cardiometabolic risk factors, this equated to a hazard ratio for hospitalization with any infection of 1.67 (P < .001).
The risk of hospitalization for any infection was significantly higher for younger patients with diabetes, defined as aged less than 55 years (P = .005), and for Black patients (P < .001).
While the increased risk was generally consistent across infection types, it was markedly increased for foot infection, at a hazard ratio of 5.99 (P < .001).
Overall, there were few deaths due to infection in the study, at just 362. The risk of infection mortality was nevertheless significantly increased in people with diabetes, at an adjusted hazard ratio of 1.72 (P < .001).
Dr. Fang has reported being supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Dr. Selvin has reported being supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Dr. Selvin is an associate editor for Diabetologia and had no role in the peer review of the manuscript.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.