Glycated Hemoglobin Measurements Not Predictive of Cardiovascular Disease Risk

Among nearly 300,000 individuals without known cardiovascular disease (CVD) or diabetes who were followed for a median of 9.9 years, the addition of information on HbA1c to conventional CVD risk assessments provided little incremental benefit for prediction of CVD risk. It also was not associated with any significant improvement in reclassification of participants across clinical risk categories that are the basis for initiating preventive treatment. The JAMA study compared 4 glycemia measures (HbA1c levels and fasting, random, or postload plasma glucose levels), and there was an approximately J-shaped association between each of these glycemia measures and CVD risk.