Diabetes and the heart: coronary heart disease.

1. Diabetics have a greater risk of experiencing and of dying from a CHD event than age matched non-diabetics. 2. The excess risk is particularly notable in insulin dependent female diabetics who seem to lose the usual 'protection' accorded to women. 3. The cause or causes of the excess risk are not known. There are a variety of 'risk factors' observed in diabetics which, in sum, may contribute. 4. At least in insulin-dependent diabetics some cardiac morbidity and mortality may also be due, not to coronary heart disease, but to a cardiomyopathy secondary to intramural obstructive vascular disease and/or disordered myocardial metabolism. 5. No therapy has yet been convincingly proved to reduce (or to increase) the risk of cardiac morbidity or mortality. Nevertheless, in treating diabetics there is an a priori case for using diets designed to lower plasma lipid levels as well as the blood sugar, for early treatment of hypertension and for discouraging cigarette smoking.