Women with Diabetes, Watch Out for Heart Disease

Women with diabetes (Type 1 or Type 2) are at a higher risk for developing heart disease than men with the disorder, according to a study in a recent issue of Diabetologia.

The medical journal’s meta-analysis of 64 studies involved more than 850,000 individuals and 28,000 coronary events. It confirmed the connection between diet, exercise and certain medications that the Framingham Heart Study first established in the mid-20th Century.

The Diabetologia article also highlighted more recent findings about differences between women’s health issues and men’s. Diabetic men experience similar risks forcardiovascular disease, but not to the same degree as women in the US. The gender differences in diabetes-related heart disease risk persist across different age groups and regions.

For women, diabetes leads to more than a 40% greater risk of developing heart disease. There are more adverse changes that increase women with diabetes’ heart-disease risk–higher blood pressure, lower HDL (good) cholesterol and more abdominal fat.

Furthermore, diabetes counteracts the protective effects of estrogen , so heart-disease risk goes up for premenopausal women with diabetes, too. The hardest-hit women have African-American, Hispanic/Latina and Native-American backgrounds.

Risk factors for diabetes include being older than 45, being overweight, havingdiabetes during pregnancy (gestational diabetes) and having a parent or sibling with diabetes. If you are at risk, get regular medical check-ups and speak to your physician about how to prevent diabetes.

Reduce the chance of developing diabetes or help prevent long-term complications from the disorder with some basic changes:

• Make healthy choices. Weight control and physical activity help to prevent diabetes, so fuel yourself with good-for-you food and exercise regularly
• Don’t smoke. Smoking increases the risk for heart disease.
• Control blood glucose levels to reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular disease by 33% to 50%. Controlling blood glucose also decreases the risk of a heart attack, stroke, or death from cardiovascular disease by 57%.

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