Numerous factors affect the risk of developing heart disease.

Some, like lack of exercise and poor diet, simply increase your risk of ending up with heart problems at all.

Yet, others actually speed up your cardiovascular risk clock, causing you to develop the disease far sooner than you otherwise would.

According to research presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2024, possibly the most dangerous of the latter leads to a syndrome that combines blood sugar and kidney issues to bring about heart disease almost three decades sooner.

Here’s how what you need to know to avoid that fate…

The dangerous intersection of diabetes and kidney disease

The study focused on analyzing how chronic kidney disease and Type 2 diabetes affect cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk.

Researchers chose to narrow in on these two conditions because they are two of the four components of cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic (CKM) syndrome.

It’s a syndrome that the American Heart Association defines as “the interplay of cardiovascular disease, kidney disease and the metabolic disorders Type 2 diabetes and obesity.”

Type 2 diabetes is also the leading cause of kidney disease, and cardiovascular disease is the most frequent cause of death for people with chronic kidney disease. If that doesn’t make the “interplay” crystal clear, I’m unsure what would.

While the wide-ranging effects of CKM impact nearly every major organ in the body, including the brain, kidneys and liver, the syndrome hits the cardiovascular system like a guided missile.

CKM significantly increases the rate of fatty buildup in the arteries. It damages heart muscle function. And it leads to glitches in the electrical impulses that power the heart itself.

However, while scientists have understood these dangers for decades, they had never quantified just how quickly diabetes or kidney problems can turn into heart problems… until now.

The clock is ticking

To determine at what age someone with each risk profile would be expected to have elevated CVD risk, the researchers used the American Heart Association Predicting Risk of cardiovascular disease EVENTs (PREVENT™) calculator.

Without CKM syndrome, the expected age at which a person is expected to have an elevated heart disease risk is 68 for women and 63 for men. However, living with diabetes or kidney issues (or both) shortens the countdown drastically:

• The study found that adults with chronic kidney disease have an elevated heart risk that starts eight years earlier than those without the disease. That’s age 60 for women and 55 for men.
• Type 2 diabetes raises cardiovascular risk at age 59 for women and 52 for men. That’s 9 years younger for women and 11 years younger for men.
• The worst news is for people with both type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease, who have an elevated risk for heart disease at age 42 for women and 35 for men. That’s 26 to 28 years earlier, respectively!

Because the American Heart Association has recognized the extreme risks of CKM, they’ve created recommendations you can follow based on stages of the condition. They go all the way from Stage 0 where there are no risk factors, and the focus is on prevention — to Stage 4 where clear signs of heart disease are present.

It’s important to note that CKM usually begins with insulin resistance, an initial stage before pre-diabetes which can take a quick turn to a diabetes diagnosis.

Two of the most important preventative steps would be keeping abreast of the early signs of insulin resistance and maintaining a healthy weight.

You can use these recommendations to take charge of your own health and as a starting point for keeping heart disease far, far away.

Sources:

Heart disease could hit up to 28 years sooner for people with CKM syndrome – EurekAlert!