Diabetes and Heart Disease

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Diabetes and heart disease

If you have diabetes you need to manage your lifestyle and diet and take preventative efforts to maintain your heart health.

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Unfortunately, diabetes and heart disease often go together. Having diabetes puts you at a two to four times risk of getting heart disease. Add in one or more risk factors such as smoking, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol increases the risk substantially.

According to the American Diabetes Association, type 1 diabetes (formerly known as juvenile) can occur at any age, but is most commonly diagnosed from infancy to the late 30s. Type 2 diabetes, typically develops after age 40, but can appear earlier, and has recently been seen with more frequency in children.

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation says, "Today, even with the availability of insulin, it is estimated that approximately one-half million North Americans die as a result of diabetes and its complications like heart and kidney disease, stroke, blindness, and amputation each year."

Having either type of diabetes places you at a higher risk of heart disease and other complications. In fact, if you are a male diabetic, your risk of heart disease is more than double that of the general population. If you are a female diabetic, the risk is five times that of the general population.

How does diabetes increase your risk?

Excess blood sugar damages the the circulatory system, which attracts deposits of fat and calcium to build up until ultimately the arteries are blocked. Having diabetes also places you at higher risk of angina, heart attack, or sudden death.

Unfortunately, if you have diabetes you may not experience the pain of heart attack or other forms of heart disease until you have significant damage to your heart.

If you have diabetes, you need to manage your lifestyle and diet and take preventative efforts to maintain your heart health. If you have diabetes AND heart disease, you will need to manage both conditions carefully. A smart heart lifestyle, along with the advice of your health care team, and taking your medications as directed will help you enjoy better and prolonged health.

There are many complications associated with diabetes - such as retinopathy, kidney failure, neuropathy, but the major cause of mortality is heart disease.

For more information on diabetes check out these resources:

American Diabetes Association

Canadian Diabetes Association

Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

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