Gout and the risk of type 2 diabetes among men with a high cardiovascular risk profile

Our objective was to evaluate the independent relation between a history of gout and the future risk of type 2 diabetes among men with a high cardiovascular risk profile.

We prospectively examined over a 6-yr period the relation between gout and the risk of incident type 2 diabetes in 11 351 male participants from the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT). Incident diabetes was defined based on the American Diabetes Association (ADA) criteria for epidemiological studies. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to adjust for potential confounders.

We documented 1215 new cases of type 2 diabetes. After adjusting for age, BMI, smoking, family history of type 2 diabetes, alcohol intake, dietary factors and presence of individual components of the metabolic syndrome, the multivariate relative risk (RR) for incident type 2 diabetes among men with gout at baseline, as compared with men without gout, was 1.34 (95% CI 1.09, 1.64). When we further adjusted for serum uric acid levels, the association remained significant (RR 1.26; 95% CI 1.02, 1.54). When we updated the status of gout annually during follow-up as a time-varying covariate, the association remained similar. The association also remained similar in our subgroup analyses by major covariates (P-values for interaction >0.16).

These findings from men with a high cardiovascular risk profile suggest that men with gout are at a higher future risk of type 2 diabetes independent of other known risk factors. These data expand on well-established, cross-sectional associations between hyperuricaemia, gout and the metabolic syndrome, and extend the link to the future risk of type 2 diabetes.