Researchers from the Diabetic Foot Clinic at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh have found monitoring the heart with preventative medicine could significantly reduce the number of patients dying from this condition, BBC News reports.
"These improvements have halved this death rate to under a quarter of foot ulcer patients dying within five years of their ulcer," said Dr Matthew Young, consultant physician at the Royal Infirmary, in the article.
After a new cardiovascular policy was put in place in 2001, researchers began the study, the BBC states.
Two groups were monitored. Approximately 250 patients in one group were given preventative heart disease medicines such as Aspirin, statin therapy, ACE inhibitors and beta blockers.
By adopting the new policy, researchers discovered the mortality rate decreased from 43.3 percent to 21.9 percent in the group.
Approximately 15 percent of diabetic patients develop foot ulcers in their lifetime. Patients who suffer from a diabetic foot ulcer have a high mortality rate.
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