Heart Transplants Still Possible For Diabetics

Filed in archive News on October 29, 2006

For a long time, rates of survival among diabetic heart transplant patients have been grim. Sometimes diabetics are refused the operation, and many people assume that transplants are not possible if you have diabetes.

But new experiments claim this isn't so. It's the severity of the disease that matters, not diabetes itself.

Patients with uncomplicated diabetes who had a heart transplant survived just as long as non-diabetic recipients over 10 years, found Yoshifumi Naka, M.D., Ph.D., of Columbia, and colleagues. But patients with diabetes-related renal disease or stroke had significantly lower survival rates.

Of course, this makes sense because the worse health a person has, no matter the illness, the more slim the chance of complete recovery. However, it is good to see diabetes not receive the full 'blame.'

(Photo Source: henry ford)