The risk of cardiovascular disease is “moderately increased” in type 2 diabetics with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, according to Italian researchers.

Dr. Giovanni Targher and colleagues at Sacro Cuore Hospital of Negrar in Verona studied 2,103 people with type 2 diabetes, who were free of cardiovascular disease at the start of the study.

During a 5-year follow-up period, 248 subjects developed nonfatal coronary heart disease - defined as having a nonfatal heart attack or needing heart bypass or angioplasty - or suffered a stroke, or died of cardiovascular causes. These subjects were compared with 496 “controls” who remained free of heart disease.

The team reports in the medical journal Diabetes, that individuals with fatty liver disease (that wasn’t attributable to alcohol abuse) had an 84 percent high likelihood of developing cardiovascular disease.

The investigators conclude that “the casual detection of nonalcoholic liver disease on an ultrasound” in type 2 diabetics should alert doctors “to the coexistence of multiple underlying cardiovascular risk factors warranting evaluation and treatment as much as the risk for advancing liver disease.”

SOURCE: Diabetes, December 2005.