Peripheral arterial disease and its relationship to cardiovascular risk factors and coronary heart disease in newly diagnosed non-insulin-dependent diabetics.

The prevalence of peripheral arterial disease and its relationship to cardiovascular risk factors was investigated in 133 patients aged 45-64 years with newly diagnosed non-insulin-dependent diabetes and in 144 randomly selected non-diabetic subjects of the same age. History of intermittent claudication, absent foot pulses, decreased ankle-arm blood pressure ratio (less than 0.9) and radiologically detectable arterial calcifications of the lower limbs were used as indicators of the presence of peripheral arterial disease. Peripheral arterial disease tended to be somewhat more common in men with newly diagnosed non-insulin-dependent diabetes than in non-diabetic men, whereas no difference was found in prevalence of peripheral arterial disease between diabetic and non-diabetic women. The association of various indicators of peripheral arterial disease with cardiovascular risk factors and coronary heart disease was low or absent.