Diabetes, gender, and left ventricular structure in African-Americans: the atherosclerosis risk in communities study.

BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular risk associated with diabetes may be partially attributed to left ventricular structural abnormalities. However, the relations between left ventricular structure and diabetes have not been extensively studied in African-Americans.

METHODS: We studied 514 male and 965 female African-Americans 51 to 70 years old, in whom echocardiographic left ventricular mass measurements were collected for the ARIC Study. In these, we investigated the independent association of diabetes with left ventricular structural abnormalities.

RESULTS: Diabetes, hypertension and obesity prevalences were 22%, 57% and 45%, respectively. Unindexed left ventricular mass was higher with diabetes in both men (238.3 +/- 79.4 g vs. 213.7 +/- 58.6 g; p

CONCLUSION: In African-Americans, diabetes is associated with left ventricular hypertrophy and, with different patterns of left ventricular structural abnormalities between genders. Attenuation seen in adjusted associations suggests that the higher frequency of structural abnormalities seen in diabetes may be due to factors other than hyperglycemia.