Cardiovascular risk factors in a patient with diabetes mellitus and coronary artery disease: therapeutic approaches to improve outcomes: perspectives of a preventive cardiologist.

In patients with diabetes mellitus (DM), a cardiovascular event is of critical concern because of the impact on long-term survival. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death for patients with DM, which makes the modification of risk factors in the patient with DM and CVD a primary focus of the preventive cardiologist. Management of this patient population should include pharmacologic interventions, such as antidyslipidemics (mainly statins) and oral anti-DM (or insulin) agents, as well as diet control, physical exercise, and smoking cessation. It is hoped that focus on the ABCs of treatment--hemoglobin A(1c), blood pressure, and cholesterol-lipid profile--along with ongoing and future studies on the effects of these interventions will help to reduce the significant morbidity and mortality from microvascular and macrovascular complications in these high-risk patients with DM.