Faster the heart pulse, higher the future risk of diabetes

A new study linking heart rate and diabetes has suggested that a person's risk of diabetes can be determined by evaluating the heart rate. In a four-year study of 73,357 Chinese adults, Penn State researchers observed that faster heart rates were positively associated with an increased risk of developing diabetes.

Researchers also found that faster heart rates were associated with impaired fasting glucose levels and a conversion from impaired fasting glucose levels to diabetes among the same population. Senior author Xiang Gao said that they found participants with faster heart rates, suggesting lower automatic function, had increased risk of diabetes, pre-diabetes and conversion from pre-diabetes to diabetes.

Gao added that each additional 10 beats per minute was associated with 23 percent increased risk of diabetes, similar to the effects of a 3 kilogram per meter square increase in body mass index. He added that this suggests that faster heart rate could be a novel pre-clinical marker or risk factor for diabetes.

(The study is published in the International Journal of Epidemiology)