Type 1 Diabetes and Coronary Artery Disease

Abstract

A high occurrence of, and mortality from, CHD in type 1 diabetes has been documented since the late 1970s (1,2). A 1984 registry reported a 10-fold or greater CHD mortality compared with that expected from U.S. national data (3). This very high relative risk, partly reflecting the extremely low CHD death rate in the general young-adult population, was subsequently confirmed by Joslin investigators (4), who reported that those with type 1 diabetes by 55 years of age experienced a sixfold greater cumulative CHD mortality compared with the rate expected using Framingham Study data. The Wisconsin Epidemiologic Study of Diabetic Retinopathy (WESDR) also reported a standardized mortality ratio (SMR) from ischemic heart disease of 9.1 (for men) and 13.5 (for women) for those with a diabetes diagnosis before 30 years of age (5).