Close to half of hospitalized heart failure patients have diabetes, according to a study involving more than 364,000 individuals. Moreover, this proportion has been rising over the past 10 years, and is seen mostly in people with new-onset heart failure with reduced ejection fraction.

Investigators identified patients hospitalized for heart failure between 2005 and 2015. They evaluated overall diabetes prevalence, as well as its frequency in subgroups with reduced, borderline, or preserved ejection fraction (EF). Among the results:

• 44% of patients had diabetes, including 42% of those with reduced, 47% with borderline, and 46% with preserved EF.
• There was an overall progressive increase in diabetes frequency, from 43% to 46%; it went from 42% to 44% in those with reduced EF.
• Patients with diabetes had a higher risk of being hospitalized longer, yet their in-hospital mortality odds were lower than those without diabetes.