CORONARY ATHEROSCLEROSIS IN DIABETES MELLITUS

Abstract

Coronary atherosclerosis manifested clinically by angina pectoris and coronary thrombosis has become an increasingly important cause of disability and death in the United States, especially among the business and professional leaders of the community. Its unusual frequency in patients with diabetes mellitus makes a study of the possible factors responsible for this increase important not only in relation to diabetes but also to coronary disease in the general population. More than one half of the 500,000 living diabetic patients in the United States are destined to die of some form of occlusive vascular disease, of which coronary sclerosis is the most important. Among nondiabetic patients, coronary artery disease is apparently largely responsible for the relatively recent and striking increase in deaths from heart disease in middle and late life. Between 1930 and 1934 the mortality from recognized coronary disease increased from 4.7 to 18.8 per hundred thousand in the experience