The earlier you develop type 2 diabetes, the greater the risk to your heart

TUESDAY, April 9, 2019 (HealthDay News) – Young adults and women with type 2 diabetes are at increased risk of developing heart disease – and are dying from it, according to a new study.

The results suggest that "we need to be more aggressive in controlling risk factors in young patients with type 2 diabetes and especially women," said Dr. Naveed Sattar, lead author.

Sattar is a professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow in Scotland.

Together with his colleagues, he badyzed data collected between 1998 and 2014 from more than 318,000 patients with type 2 diabetes in Sweden. They also examined data from a control group of more than 1.5 million people without the disease and compared them for about five years.

They found that people with type 2 diabetes before the age of 40 were the worst off. They had the highest risk of stroke, heart attack, heart failure, heart rate disorder called atrial fibrillation and death.

Women generally had a higher risk of heart disease and death than men in most categories.

The results for the elderly were less worrying. The researchers found that the increased risk of death, regardless of the cause, in people with type 2 diabetes aged 80 or older decreased significantly and was similar to that of people of the same age without diabetes.

The study was published April 8 in the journal circulation.

"Our study shows that the differences in risk of excessive diabetes are related to the age of the person diagnosed with type 2 diabetes," Sattar said in a press release.

Much less effort and resources could be devoted to screening for type 2 diabetes in people 80 years of age and older, unless there are symptoms, he added.

"In addition, our work could also be used to encourage middle-aged people at risk for high diabetes to adopt lifestyle changes in order to delay their diabetes by several years," said Sattar.

The researchers noted that the study mainly followed a white European population. Therefore, further studies are needed to badess the role of heart disease in non-white populations with type 2 diabetes.

More information

The American Heart Association has more about diabetes and heart disease.