A simple blood test may increase the ability for health professionals to predict the risk of heart attack or death associated with cardiovascular disease in people with type 2 diabetes.

Australian researchers at The George Institute for Global Health and The University of Sydney say the test appears to greatly improve the accuracy with which the risk of cardiovascular events such as stroke can be estimated in people with type 2.

The study is important because the frequency of heart attacks in people with type 2 diabetes increases two-to-threefold over people without diabetes. In fact the research team says approximately two in every three patients with diabetes will die due to cardiovascular disease.

Associate Professor Graham Hillis said the next steps in the study will be to see which treatments best reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, and to check that treatment actually does make a difference for people with type 2 diabetes.

“The research thus far suggests that these tests are quite good at defining who is at risk and who may need further investigation, A/Prof. Hillis said.

“These screening tests are both already widely available blood tests, but are not currently used for this purpose.â€

Australian Diabetes Council Deputy CEO Kristen Hazelwood said that while there is currently no cure for diabetes, discoveries such as this one showed that we are moving ever closer to finding the key to reducing the impact of diabetes-related complications.

“Diabetes is the fastest-growing chronic disease in Australia, with one person being diagnosed with diabetes every five minutes,†Ms Hazelwood said. “Discoveries such as this, along with the research to be undertaken by Australian Diabetes Council Chair of Diabetes Professor Charles Mackay, will bring a cure for diabetes and its complications ever closerâ€.

A/Prof. Hillis said that the blood test discovery could mean that health professionals would have a better way of accurately finding cardiovascular problems in people with diabetes much earlier than they can now, with existing risk-prediction methods being imperfect.

“Simple screening tests that better detect high risk type 2 diabetes patients would be particularly valuable,†A/Prof. Hillis said.