Diabetes and Vascular Disease

Diabetes and Coronary Artery Disease

Approximately 250 million patients with Diabetes worldwide are at high risk of developing cardiovascular disease and over half are likely to die as a result.¹ Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) is the most common cardiovascular complication of diabetes and is the number one cause of death among patients with Diabetes.² These patients are 2 to 4 times more likely to develop CAD and once it develops they have a poorer prognosis.³

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Diabetes and Coronary Artery Disease

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LifeBeat^SM Online
Heart Disease and Diabetes—What's the Connection?

LifeBeat Online is an e-newsletter created to help people with cardiac devices live full, active lives. It provides cardiac news, health tips, and more. This article discusses the connection between heart disease and diabetes.

Diabetes and Peripheral Vascular Disease

Every 30 seconds a leg is lost to Diabetes and annually over 1 million people will undergo an amputation as a consequence of their Diabetes. The majority of these amputations are preceded by a foot ulcer of which the most important factors of development are peripheral neuropathy, foot deformities, minor foot trauma and Peripheral Vascular Disease (PVD).⁴ It has been reported that PVD may play role in approximately 50% of all cases of foot ulcers and this number is thought to be a gross underestimate.⁵ Patients with Diabetes are 5 times⁶ more likely to suffer from Critical Limb Ischemia, the end-stage manifestation of PVD, than those in the general population. Outcomes tend to be worse in these patients with the risk of amputation increasing by 11 fold in the presence of Diabetes.⁷

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Diabetes and Peripheral Artery Disease

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References

1. Morrish NJ, et al. Mortality and causes of death in the WHO Multinational Study of Vascular Disease in Diabetes. Diabetologia 2001;44 (Suppl 2):S14–S21 Colagiuri S. The prevalence of abnormal glucose regulation in patients with coronary artery disease across Europe. Eur Heart J 2004;25:1861–1862
2. Ryden L, Standl E, Bartnik M, et al. Guidelines on diabetes, pre-diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases: executive summary: The Task Force on Diabetes and Cardiovascular Diseases of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD). Eur Heart J 2007;28(1):88-136
3. Hurst RT, Lee RW. Increased incidence of coronary atherosclerosis in type 2 diabetes mellitus: mechanisms and management. Ann Intern Med 2003;139:824–834
4. Jonason T, Ringqvist I. Factors of prognostic importance for subsequent rest pain in patients with intermittent claudication. Acta Med Scand 1985;218:27-33.
5. Holstein P, Ellitsgaard N, Sørensen S, et al. The number of amputations has decreased[in Danish]. Nord Med 1996; 111 (5): 142-4, 160.
6. Dormandy JA, Thomas PRS: What is the natural history of a critically ischemic patient with and without his leg?, in Greenhalgh RM et al (eds): Limb salvage and amputation for Vascular Disease, Philadelphia, PA, WB Saunders Co, 1988 11-26.
7. PDUK Guidelines for the prevention and management of foot problems for people with Diabetes, Jan 2007.