**4. HITs in managing cardiovascular risks among patients with T2D**

T2D is commonly accompanied by cardiovascular complications. Adults with diabetes have a 77–87% prevalence of hypertension, a 74–81% prevalence of elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL), and a 62–67% prevalence of obesity [37]. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is recognized as the most frequent cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with diabetes, causing up to 70% of all deaths in this patient group [2]. Type 2 diabetes (T2D) confers an approximate twofold elevation of CVD risk, equivalent to that of a previous myocardial infarction [3, 38]. In light of CVD burden in those with diabetes, the management of modifiable CVD risk factors, including hypertension, dyslipidemia, and obesity, is critical to minimizing the risk of macrovascular complications as well as death of diabetes. Yet, the implementation of preventive strategies to CVD among individuals with T2D is often not adequate [39–41] and less than half of patients who visit their care provider meet recommended levels for blood pressure (BP) and lipids [42]. Innovative approaches such as HITs are needed to facilitate CVD risk factor management among patients with T2D.

In the context of cardiovascular care among general populations, HITs were documented to offer numerous benefits and have been associated with improvements in the measurement and monitoring of heart health, including risk factors such as BP, arrhythmia, cholesterol, and weight, as well as the implementation of guideline-based decision support for providers [43]. However, CVD outcomes are usually secondary and less described compared to glycemic status in T2D management trials [26, 44]. Furthermore, many review studies examining HITs' effect in diabetes management often overlooked CVD outcomes [26, 44] or include insufficient sample size or limited CVD parameters for analysis [22, 24]. In the study by Marcolino et al., only 13 studies were included in the final analysis, within which 8 studies assessed the effect on SBP, 7 on DBP, and 5 on LDL [22]. No effects of telecommunication and information technologies were seen on SBP and DBP. They did, however, find a statistically significant reduction on LDL (−6.6 mg/dL, 95% CI −8.3, −4.9 mg/dL) associated with the technologies evaluated. They were not able to perform analysis on weight outcome, because only two studies assessed the effect of HITs on weight and both studies demonstrated a nonsignificant reduction on weight. In the systematic review by Pal et al., among 11 RCTs included in their final analysis, 5 studies looked into changes in BP (only 1 showed improvement in BP), 7 reported changes in BMI or weight (5 were combined in a meta-analysis), and 10 measured serum lipids (7 were combined in a meta-analysis) [24]. The overall pooled effect did not reach statistical significance for all of these outcomes [24].
