American Heart Association Diabetes and Cardiometabolic Health Summit: Summary and Recommendations

In the United States, 23.4 million adults have physician‐diagnosed diabetes mellitus (DM),1 81.6 million have prediabetes, and ≈18 000 people under age 20 years are diagnosed with type 1 DM each year.2 Approximately 90% to 95% of all adult DM cases are type 2.2 As such, data mentioned throughout will primarily comprise patients with type 2 DM. Patients with DM are 2 to 4 times more likely to die of cardiovascular disease (CVD) than patients without DM. The prevalence of patients living with DM and prediabetes continues to increase, putting these individuals at greater risk of having a heart attack or stroke. Often patients with DM have multiple other health problems and must also manage other cardiometabolic health risk factors such as obesity, hypertension, and high cholesterol. Because of the direct impact DM and related cardiometabolic disorders have on CVD, the American Heart Association (AHA) is building a multifaceted initiative to (1) unite the primary care, cardiology, endocrinology, and other specialty care provider communities in a comprehensive approach to caring for and treating patients with cardiometabolic conditions such as DM; (2) educate and empower people living with cardiometabolic disorders and DM to better self‐manage their condition(s) and improve their cardiovascular health. By expanding AHA's efforts to include initiatives and programs to reduce the prevalence and impact of cardiometabolic risk factors (such as prediabetes) and conditions (such as DM), the AHA will progress toward its mission of building healthier lives, free of cardiovascular diseases and stroke. To launch this new initiative, AHA held its first Cardiometabolic Health and Diabetes Summit on December 5, 2017, in Dallas, Texas. The objective was to identify and prioritize opportunities to improve cardiometabolic health and DM care in the United States (Figure 1). Open in a separate window Figure 1 American Heart Association Summit key opportunities.