Higher-than-optimal blood glucose levels as a leading cause for cardiovascular mortality worldwide

Population-level effects of all higher-than-optimum blood glucose on mortality from ischaemic heart disease and stroke were studied by collating blood glucose data from health surveys in 52 countries. Relative risks for ischaemic heart disease and stroke mortality were drawn from a meta-analysis including more than 200000 participants from Asia-Pacific. Besides 959000 deaths directly linked to diabetes, 21% of all deaths from ischaemic heart disease and 13% of all deaths from stroke were attributable to high blood glucose. Higher-than-optimum blood glucose was a leading cause of cardiovascular mortality in most regions. The largest number of deaths from ischaemic heart disease attributable to high blood glucose was in low-and-middle-income countries of South Asia, Europe and Central Asia whereas the largest number of deaths from stroke attributable to high blood glucose was in South Asia, East Asia and Pacific.

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