Severity of acute heart failure in men according to diabetes mellitus: The role of testosterone and renal dysfunction

Abstract

A large body of evidence suggests multi-directional mechanisms linking diabetes mellitus (DM) with heart failure (HF) including a worse prognosis of HF in patients with coexisting DM [1–4]. Several comorbidities commonly associated with DM, primarily secondary anemia [3,5–7] and chronic renal failure [3,5,6], have been proposed to explain this link. Apart from that, a decline in the testosterone levels (TL), also commonly and independently linked to the DM [8–10], seems to be one of the most salient factors for the prognosis of HF patients [11–14].