Cause-specific mortality in type 2 diabetes. The Verona Diabetes Study.

OBJECTIVE: This population-based study, carried out in the framework of the Verona Diabetes Study, investigated mortality from specific causes in known type 2 diabetic patients. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: A cohort of 7,148 known type 2 diabetic patients (3,366 men and 3,782 women) was identified on 31 December 1986 and followed up for 5 years (1987-1991). Underlying causes of death were obtained from death certificates and were coded according to the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision. Cause-specific death rates of diabetic subjects were compared with those of the inhabitants of Verona. By 31 December 1991, 1,550 diabetic subjects (744 men and 806 women) had died. RESULTS: The standardized mortality ratio (SMR) for all causes of death was 1.42 (95% CI 1.35-1.50). The highest SMRs were for the following specific causes: diabetes (SMR 4.47 [3.91-5.10]), gastrointestinal diseases (1.83 [1.50-2.21])--particularly liver cirrhosis (2.52 [1.96-3.20])--and cardiovascular diseases (1.34 [1.23-1.44]), particularly cerebrovascular (1.48 [1.25-1.73]) and ischemic heart diseases (1.41 [1.24-1.62]). A significantly higher than expected risk of mortality for cardiovascular causes was already present in the first 5 years after diagnosis and decreased with age. Type 2 diabetic patients treated with insulin had a higher risk of dying than those treated orally or by diet. CONCLUSIONS: The highest SMRs in the diabetic cohort were for diabetes and liver cirrhosis. The mortality risk for cardiovascular diseases, although significantly higher than expected, was much lower in Italian type 2 diabetic patients than that reported for American patients. The evidence of an early effect on mortality suggests that prevention, early diagnosis, and treatment should be improved.     

Incidence, prevalence, and mortality of diabetes in a large population. A report from the Skaraborg Diabetes Registry.

OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to analyze the prevalence, incidence, and mortality of diabetes in a population of 280,539 inhabitants. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: The incidence, prevalence, and deaths from diabetes at all ages of a population have been prospectively followed in the county of Skaraborg, Sweden, since 1991. RESULTS: The annual incidence of diabetes per 100,000 inhabitants in 1991-1995 was (mean +/- 95% CI) 14.7 +/- 3.2 for type 1 diabetes (diagnosed at 24.1 +/- 2.2 years of age) and 265.6 +/- 16.1 for type 2 diabetes (diagnosed at 66.6 +/- 0.6 years of age). The incidence of type 2 diabetes was significantly (P < 0.001) higher among men. There was no significant change in the age at diagnosis of diabetes. Although the incidence rate and the age at diagnosis were constant, the prevalence of diabetes increased by 6% each year. The relative mortality risk for diabetic patients was almost four times higher than expected. The median age at death, however, increased significantly, from 77.2 to 80.2 years (P < 0.05), during the study. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence but not the incidence rate of diabetes increased during the years 1991-1995. Although diabetic patients showed a high relative mortality, increased survival apparently explains the increase in prevalence of diabetes in the country of Skaraborg.     

Coronary Calcium Score Predicts Cardiovascular Mortality in Diabetes: Diabetes Heart Study

OBJECTIVE

In type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), it remains unclear whether coronary artery calcium (CAC) provides additional information about cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality beyond the Framingham Risk Score (FRS) factors.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

A total of 1,123 T2DM participants, ages 34–86 years, in the Diabetes Heart Study followed up for an average of 7.4 years were separated using baseline computed tomography scans of CAC (0–9, 10–99, 100–299, 300–999, and ≥1,000). Logistic regression was performed to examine the association between CAC and CVD mortality adjusting for FRS. Areas under the curve (AUC) with and without CAC were compared. Net reclassification improvement (NRI) compared FRS (model 1) versus FRS+CAC (model 2) using 7.4-year CVD mortality risk categories 0% to <7%, 7% to <20%, and ≥20%.

RESULTS

Overall, 8% of participants died of cardiovascular causes during follow-up. In multivariate analysis, the odds ratios (95% CI) for CVD mortality using CAC 0–9 as the reference group were, CAC 10–99: 2.93 (0.74–19.55); CAC 100–299: 3.17 (0.70–22.22); CAC 300–999: 4.41(1.15–29.00); and CAC ≥1,000: 11.23 (3.24–71.00). AUC (95% CI) without CAC was 0.70 (0.67–0.73), AUC with CAC was 0.75 (0.72–0.78), and NRI was 0.13 (0.07–0.19).

CONCLUSIONS

In T2DM, CAC predicts CVD mortality and meaningfully reclassifies participants, suggesting clinical utility as a risk stratification tool in a population already at increased CVD risk.Diabetes is a coronary heart disease risk equivalent because diabetes-affected individuals experience a poorer prognosis compared with nondiabetic subjects (1). The high overall mortality is largely driven by increased cardiovascular mortality (1–3). Diabetes is characterized by accelerated atherosclerosis (4), with increased amounts of connective tissue, glycoproteins, and calcified plaque in blood vessels (5,6). Imaging by computed tomography (CT) reveals that diabetes-affected individuals have extensive calcification of their vascular beds (7–9), reported as the coronary artery calcium (CAC) score, reflecting significant cardiovascular disease (CVD) burden.Several observational studies demonstrate that subclinical atherosclerosis, such as CAC, predicts (10–12) and reclassifies (13–15) future CVD events, independent of conventional risk factors in the general population. We have previously shown that a higher CAC score in diabetes predicts all-cause mortality (16). Whether higher CAC scores are associated with adverse clinical outcomes, in particular CVD mortality, in diabetes has not been studied extensively. One aim of this study was to examine the risk of CVD mortality in participants with diabetes across a range of CAC scores.Pencina et al. (17) introduced the concept of net reclassification improvement (NRI), which measures the extent to which individuals with and without events are appropriately reclassified into clinically accepted higher or lower risk categories with the addition of a new marker. A second part of this study was to evaluate the extent to which adding CAC to a model based on Framingham risk factors correctly reclassifies diabetes participant’s risk of future CVD mortality.     

Relationship between diabetes and mortality: a population study using record linkage

OBJECTIVE: To determine patterns and causes of mortality for patients with diabetes in a district health authority RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: The study used cross-sectional record linkage, combining an electronic death register with a diabetic patient register constructed from a variety of routine health data sources collected from 1991 to 1997. The study was conducted in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, U.K., and included all diabetic deaths between 1993 and 1996. RESULTS: Of 1,694 deaths in patients with known diabetes, only 674 (39.8%) had diabetes recorded as an immediate or antecedent cause of death. Mortality rates were 41.8 per 1,000 for the diabetic population and 10.1 per 1,000 for the nondiabetic population. The standard mean ratio for the diabetic population was 1.24 (95% CI 1.12-1.35), with the risk of mortality relative to the nondiabetic population decreasing with age. Males with diabetes lost an average of 7.0 years from the year of diagnosis, and females with diabetes lost an average of 7.5 years. The most common cause of death was cardiovascular disease, which accounted for 49.1% of deaths in the diabetic population. CONCLUSIONS: Diabetes is recorded as a cause of death on a minority of death certificates for patients with diabetes. Using death certificates in isolation, therefore, is a poor method of estimating diabetic mortality, but results can be improved with the use of record linkage techniques. Patients with diabetes have an excess risk of mortality compared with the nondiabetic population. Life-years lost for patients with diabetes is strongly related to age at diagnosis and is a means of expressing mortality without relying on accurate prevalence data.     

Impact of lifestyle-related factors on all-cause and cause-specific mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes: the Taichung Diabetes Study

OBJECTIVE

To examine whether combined lifestyle behaviors have an impact on all-cause and cause-specific mortality in patients aged 30–94 years with type 2 diabetes (T2DM).

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

Participants included 5,686 patients >30 years old with T2DM who were enrolled in a Diabetes Care Management Program at a medical center in central Taiwan before 2007. Lifestyle behaviors consisted of smoking, alcohol drinking, physical inactivity, and carbohydrate intake. The main outcomes were all-cause and cause-specific mortality. Cox proportional hazards models were used to examine the association between combined lifestyle behaviors and mortality.

RESULTS

The mortality rate among men was 24.10 per 1,000 person-years, and that among women was 17.25 per 1,000 person-years. After adjusting for the traditional risk factors, we found that combined lifestyle behavior was independently associated with all-cause mortality and mortality due to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Patients with three or more points were at a 3.50-fold greater risk of all-cause mortality (95% CI 2.06–5.96) and a 4.94-fold (1.62–15.06), 4.24-fold (1.20–14.95), and 1.31-fold (0.39–4.41) greater risk of diabetes-specific, CVD-specific, and cancer-specific mortality, respectively, compared with patients with zero points. Among these associations, the combined lifestyle behavior was not significantly associated with cancer mortality.

CONCLUSIONS

Combined lifestyle behavior is a strong predictor of all-cause and cause-specific mortality in patients with T2DM.Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and its complications are leading causes of premature mortality, imposing a heavy burden at the individual and societal level (1,2). With the Westernization of diet behaviors, the prevalence of T2DM has increased dramatically in Taiwan. The National Nutrition Survey in Taiwan revealed that the prevalence of T2DM among men aged ≥65 years had increased dramatically: from 13.1 to 17.6 to 28.5% in 1993–1996, 2002, and 2005–2008, respectively (3). The International Diabetes Federation (2) proposed that the causes of the increase in diabetes prevalence were population aging and unhealthy lifestyle behaviors. The components of these unhealthy lifestyle behaviors included being physically inactive, smoking, alcohol drinking, and having an unhealthy diet (4–6).T2DM is also an important cause of microvascular and macrovascular diseases. Lifestyle modifications in conjunction with antidiabetes medications can prevent premature morbidity and mortality (5,7). However, for individuals with diabetes, the most difficult task is to strike a balance between the individual’s desires and compliance with behavior modification for disease management. It has been reported that individuals with diabetes who practice healthy lifestyle behaviors have better glycemic control (8) and that better glycemic control is associated with lower mortality (9). Although the effects of these individual or combined lifestyle behaviors on mortality have been well studied in general populations (10–18), little is known about the association between these lifestyle behaviors and mortality in patients with T2DM (5,19). Understanding the relationships of these modifiable predictors on mortality in patients with T2DM will have great clinical significance for diabetes care.The Taichung Diabetes Study is a population-based cohort study of ~6,000 middle-aged and older ethnic Chinese patients with T2DM who enrolled in the Diabetes Care Management Program (DCMP) of a medical center in Taiwan. The DCMP provides financial incentives for physicians to increase exhaustive follow-up visits, including annual self-care education and assessment by care managers and a clinical nutrition practitioner, annual eye examinations, and four annual laboratory tests. The DCMP provided a unique opportunity to quantify the overall impact of lifestyle factors, including smoking, alcohol drinking, regular exercise, and carbohydrate intake, on mortality. The purpose of this study was to fill this gap in knowledge by investigating the prospective associations among lifestyle factors and all-cause, diabetes-, cardiovascular disease (CVD)-, and cancer-specific mortality, independently of HbA_1c, and several baseline traditional factors, in a large cohort of ethnic Chinese patients with T2DM who were followed up for more than 4 years.     

International Variations in Cardiovascular Mortality Associated with Diabetes Mellitus: The WHO Multinational Study of Vascular Disease in Diabetes

The WHO Multinational Study of Vascular Disease in Diabetes was launched in 1975–77 to investigate international variations in the occurrence of different manifestations of vascular disease in subjects with insulin-dependent and non-insulin-dependent diabetes. A morbidity and mortality follow-up extending until January 1, 1988 was carried out in 10 centres, including five European centres (London, Switzerland, Berlin, Warsaw and Zagreb), two East Asian centres (Hong Kong and Tokyo), two Native American centres (Arizona and Oklahoma) and one Caribbean centre (Havana). Of a total of 4714 diabetic subjects (2310 men and 2404 women) aged between 35 and 55 years at baseline who were successfully followed up, 1266 were classified as having insulin-dependent diabetes and 3448 as having non-insulin-dependent diabetes. There was a large variation between the centres in ischaemic heart disease and cerebrovascular disease mortality rates for both insulin-dependent and non-insulin-dependent diabetic subjects, presumably reflecting in part differences between the background populations in mortality rates from these cardiovascular causes. The lowest ischaemic heart disease mortality rates for diabetic subjects were observed in Hong Kong and Tokyo centres, representing industrialized countries which have continued to have low Ischaemic heart disease mortality rates. The importance of raised blood pressure and proteinuria as potentially modifiable cardiovascular risk factors in diabetic subjects was confirmed in this study.     

Mortality and hormone-related exposures in women with diabetes.

OBJECTIVE: Hormone-related events and exposures are related to mortality and especially to cardiovascular disease in women. We evaluated whether such exposures influenced risk in a well-defined group of women with diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Women with younger- and older-onset diabetes who were identified during a population-based study were queried about number of pregnancies, age at menarche, use of oral contraceptives, use of estrogen replacement therapy, and menopausal status at examinations in 1984-1986. Analyses are limited to women aged > or = 18 years (n = 398 and 542 in those with younger- and older-onset diabetes, respectively). Cohort mortality was monitored carefully, and causes of death were abstracted from death certificates. RESULTS: There were 58 deaths in the first group and 338 deaths in the second group since the 1984-1986 examination. The number of pregnancies was significantly associated with all-cause mortality (hazard ratio, 0.96 [95% CI 0.92-1.00]) in older-onset women only. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest and are compatible with the notion that the hormone exposures examined are unrelated to cardiovascular mortality in women with diabetes, with the exception of a minimal effect of the number of pregnancies in older-onset women. Whether there is a difference in these exposure-outcome relationships between women with diabetes and those without diabetes is uncertain and requires further investigation.     

Diabetes duration and cause-specific mortality in the Verona Diabetes Study

OBJECTIVE: To examine the 10-year mortality and effect of diabetes duration on overall and cause-specific mortality in diabetic subjects in the Verona Diabetes Study (VDS). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Records from diabetes clinics, family physicians, and a drug consumption database were used to identify 5,818 subjects > or =45 years of age with type 2 diabetes who were alive and residing in Verona, Italy on 31 December 1986. Vital status of each subject was ascertained on 31 December 1996. Underlying causes of death were determined from death certificates. Death rates and death rate ratios (DRRs) were computed and standardized to the population of Verona in 1991. RESULTS: During the study, 2,328 subjects died; 974 deaths were attributable to cardiovascular disease, 517 to neoplasms, 324 to diabetes-related diseases, 134 to digestive diseases, 250 to other natural causes, and 48 to external causes. There were 81 subjects who died of unknown causes. Death rates from natural causes were higher in men than in women (DRR 1.4, 95% CI 1.2-1.5) and rose in both sexes with increasing duration of diabetes (P = 0.001). Among the natural causes of death, those for diabetes-related diseases were strongly related to diabetes duration (P = 0.001). a modest relationship with duration was also found for ischemic heart disease in men (P = 0.07). CONCLUSIONS: Cardiovascular disease was the principal cause of death among people with type 2 diabetes in the VDS. Rates for natural causes of death rose with increasing duration of diabetes. Deaths from diabetes-related diseases in both sexes and from ischemic heart disease in men were largely responsible for this increase.     

Cause-specific mortality coding. methods in the collaborative ocular melanoma study coms report no. 14

Ascertainment of cause of death is often sought in clinical trials in which mortality is an outcome of interest. Standardized methods of coding all-cause and disease-specific mortality were developed and evaluated in the Collaborative Ocular Melanoma Study randomized trial of pre-enucleation radiation of large choroidal melanoma. All available clinical and pathologic materials documenting events prior to each reported death were reviewed systematically by a Mortality Coding Committee (MCC) to determine whether melanoma metastasis or local recurrence was present at the time of death. A level of certainty was assigned based on availability of local or central review of pathology materials. The outcome of the mortality coding protocol was evaluated both by assessing agreement between the judgment of the MCC and the presumed cause of death reported by the clinical center and, for a subset of patients, by assessing agreement between the MCC classification and the cause of death reported on the death certificate. As of July 31, 1997 (the cutoff date for the initial mortality report), 435 (95%) of 457 deceased patient files had been reviewed. The MCC classified 269 patients (62%) as dead with melanoma metastasis, 22 (5%) as dead with another malignant tumor, and 92 (21%) as dead with a malignant tumor of uncertain origin. Thirty-eight patients (9%) died with no evidence of malignancy; in 14 cases (3%), the presence or absence of malignancy could not be established due to lack of clinical information. Fair agreement (kappa = 0.34) was observed between the determinations of the MCC based on detailed review of materials and the cause of death reported on the death certificate, but death certificates alone underestimated the proportion of deaths due to metastatic choroidal melanoma. Detailed mortality coding identified difficulties associated with accurate reporting of cause-specific mortality in patients with choroidal melanoma.     

Diabetes and diabetic retinopathy in a Mexican-American population: Proyecto VER.

OBJECTIVES: The prevalence rate of diabetes is probably higher in Hispanics than in Caucasians, although there is controversy about differences in the risk of diabetic retinopathy. The purpose of the study is to determine the prevalence rates of diabetes and diabetic retinopathy in a population-based study of Hispanics aged > or = 40 years. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Proyecto VER is a random sample of Hispanic populations aged > or = 40 years in Arizona. A total of 4,774 individuals (71.6% of the eligible sample) completed the examinations. Diabetes was defined as self-report of a physician diagnosis or HbA(1c) value of > or = 7.0%. Diabetic retinopathy was assessed on stereo fundus photographs of fields 1, 2, and 4. RESULTS: The prevalence rate of diabetes in the Hispanic community (individuals > or = 40 years of age) was 22%. The prevalence rate of diabetic retinopathy (DR) was 48%; 32% had moderate to severe nonproliferative and proliferative retinopathy. DR increased with increasing duration of diabetes and increasing level of HbA(1c). The prevalence rate of DR-like changes in the sample of individuals without diabetic retinopathy was 15% and was not associated with hypertension, systolic blood pressure, or diastolic blood pressure. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence rate of diabetes in this population of Hispanics is high, almost twice that of Caucasians. The prevalence rate of DR is high but similar to reports in a Caucasian population. The prevalence rate of 9% moderate to severe retinopathy in the newly diagnosed group suggests that efforts to improve detection and treatment of diabetes in Hispanics may be warranted.     

Long-Term Complications and Mortality in Young-Onset Diabetes: Type 2 diabetes is more hazardous and lethal than type 1 diabetes

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate long-term clinical outcomes and survival in young-onset type 2 diabetes (T2DM) compared with type 1 diabetes (T1DM) with a similar age of onset.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

Records from the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Diabetes Clinical Database, established in 1986, were matched with the Australian National Death Index to establish mortality outcomes for all subjects until June 2011. Clinical and mortality outcomes in 354 patients with T2DM, age of onset between 15 and 30 years (T2DM_15–30), were compared with T1DM in several ways but primarily with 470 patients with T1DM with a similar age of onset (T1DM_15–30) to minimize the confounding effect of age on outcome.

RESULTS

For a median observation period of 21.4 (interquartile range 14–30.7) and 23.4 (15.7–32.4) years for the T2DM and T1DM cohorts, respectively, 71 of 824 patients (8.6%) died. A significant mortality excess was noted in T2DM_15–30 (11 vs. 6.8%, P = 0.03), with an increased hazard for death (hazard ratio 2.0 [95% CI 1.2–3.2], P = 0.003). Death for T2DM_15–30 occurred after a significantly shorter disease duration (26.9 [18.1–36.0] vs. 36.5 [24.4–45.4] years, P = 0.01) and at a relatively young age. There were more cardiovascular deaths in T2DM_15–30 (50 vs. 30%, P < 0.05). Despite equivalent glycemic control and shorter disease duration, the prevalence of albuminuria and less favorable cardiovascular risk factors were greater in the T2DM_15–30 cohort, even soon after diabetes onset. Neuropathy scores and macrovascular complications were also increased in T2DM_15–30 (P < 0.0001).

CONCLUSIONS

Young-onset T2DM is the more lethal phenotype of diabetes and is associated with a greater mortality, more diabetes complications, and unfavorable cardiovascular disease risk factors when compared with T1DM.Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) in youth is coming increasingly into focus given its rising incidence and prevalence, tracking together with childhood obesity. For those with young-onset T2DM, the increased lifetime exposure to hyperglycemia predicts a high complications risk over time (1). Moreover, there is evidence for an increased inherent susceptibility to complications, namely retinopathy in diabetes presenting earlier rather than later in life (2). Furthermore, the results from the recent TODAY (Treatment Options for Type 2 Diabetes in Adolescents and Youth) study, which examines optimal treatment regimens in young-onset T2DM (3), illustrate the difficulty in achieving and maintaining good glycemic control in youth, highlighting the lifelong metabolic challenges of early onset T2DM. Together, these observations predict a poorer prognosis for young-onset T2DM. Nevertheless, T2DM in youth is a relatively new problem, and there are few data on long-term survival or complications to substantiate this prediction. Such long-term outcomes from this point would take many decades to collect. Therefore, we interrogated a systematically maintained clinical database, with data spanning >20 years, and cross-referenced it to the Australian National Death Index (NDI) to examine the long-term case fatality and cause of death in young-onset T2DM. Long-term complications data were also examined in this group.In clinical practice, a diagnosis of T2DM as opposed to type 1 diabetes (T1DM) in a young person often is met with relief because T2DM is perceived as the milder form. Again, little exists in the literature to substantiate this assumption. Given that the traditional focus of diabetes in youth has been on T1DM and that established morbidity and mortality data exist for this group (4,5), a comparison was made with T1DM. Accurate comparisons of outcome between T1DM and T2DM of usual onset have always been confounded by either older age of the typical T2DM patient or if age is accounted for, the much longer disease duration of the T1DM patient. By comparing only young-onset groups in this study, we were able to examine the long-term effects T2DM compared with T1DM, minimizing the otherwise unavoidable confounding effects of age differences on morbidity and mortality outcomes.     

Ten-year follow-up of antidiabetic drug use, nonadherence, and mortality in a defined population with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Studies performed for drug registration provide little insight into the long-term use and effectiveness of drugs in "real world" populations and settings. To obtain such insight, we used 10 years of electronic medical-record data from Kaiser Permanente Northwest Division, a large, group-model health maintenance organization in the United States, to study drug transitions, lapses in drug therapy, and mortality among 693 persons with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus in 1988. We also studied an equivalently defined cohort of 1071 persons with new diagnoses in 1994, for whom the availability of laboratory results via electronic data permitted additional analyses. Cumulative mortality in the 1988 cohort increased steadily to 207 of 571 patients (36%) by 1997 (year 10). In 1988, 548 of 693 patients (79%) received initial monotherapy with a sulfonylurea. Insulin use rose as the use of sulfonylureas declined. Over this period, 504 of 693 patients (73%) discontinued or added drug therapy. Eight percent to 10% of both sulfonylurea users and insulin users discontinued drug use during the study period. In the 1994 cohort, two thirds of the subjects who discontinued therapy and were tested for glycosylated hemoglobin (Hb A1c) (n = 86) maintained good-to-excellent glycemic control. However, 78 discontinuers (38%) were not tested for Hb A1c, and, among this subset, 32% failed to visit a primary care clinician. The results of this study suggest that 5% to 10% of persons with type 2 diabetes mellitus avoid contact with the medical care system. Avoidance persists for at least the first 10 years after diagnosis but is more common in the first year after diagnosis. In addition, secondary failure of sulfonylureas begins within 1 year of diagnosis and continues at a steady pace. Almost 80% of patients initially treated with sulfonylureas added or switched to metformin or insulin within 10 years of diagnosis.     

Diabetes in the elderly population.

One in 10 elderly people in the US has diabetes, and as the number of elderly people increases, so will the number of people with diabetes. Patient participation is crucial to successful management of diabetes; however, elderly patients often have functional deficits that interfere with their ability to perform monitoring tasks. Elderly people require comprehensive assessment and careful follow-up to prevent serious, acute complications such as hyperosmolarity and hyperglycemia. Short-acting oral hypoglycemics are recommended to reduce the risk of hypoglycemia in elderly patients.     

Effect of diabetes on the mortality risk of cardiogenic shock in a community-based population

OBJECTIVE: To examine the mortality of diabetic vs nondiabetic patients with anterior myocardial infarction (AMI) among the subsets of this population who did and did not develop cardiogenic shock. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The study population consisted of a consecutive series of 1263 Olmsted County, Minnesota, patients admitted to the coronary care unit at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn, between January 1, 1988, and July 31, 2000. Of these patients, 73 met the criteria for cardiogenic shock during their hospitalization. In-hospital and postadmission mortality were compared between diabetic and nondiabetic patients within the cardiogenic shock and nonshock patient groups, respectively. RESULTS: In patients with AMI and cardiogenic shock, diabetes was associated with a trend for increased in-hospital mortality (odds ratio, 2.82; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.90-9.92; P = .08). In 73 patients with cardiogenic shock, estimated survival at 1, 3, and 5 years was 25%, 17%, and 17%, respectively, for diabetic patients, and 50%, 44%, and 36%, respectively, for nondiabetic patients (P = .046). The association between diabetic patients and increased long-term mortality was stronger in patients with cardiogenic shock than in patients without cardiogenic shock (adjusted relative risk, 2.08; 95% CI, 1.11-3.90; P = .02). In diabetic patients without cardiogenic shock, estimated survival at 1, 3, and 5 years was low, at 75%, 61%, and 45%, respectively, compared with 83%, 76%, and 69%, respectively, for nondiabetic patients (adjusted relative risk, 1.29; 95% CI, 1.02-1.62; P = .03). CONCLUSION: The presence of diabetes as a comorbidity in patients with AMI appears to be associated with increased mortality compared with nondiabetic patients, and this relationship may be potentially magnified in patients who develop cardiogenic shock.     

Mortality in childhood-onset type 1 diabetes: a population-based study

OBJECTIVE: To describe the age- and sex-specific mortality in a cohort of young type 1 diabetic patients and to analyze the causes of death with special focus on suicide, accidents, and unexplained deaths. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: A population-based incident childhood diabetes register, covering onset cases since 1 July 1977, was linked to the Swedish Cause of Death Register up to 31 December 2000. The official Swedish population register was used to calculate age- and sex-standardized mortality rates (SMRs), excluding neonatal deaths. To analyze excess risks for specific diagnoses, case subjects were compared with five nondiabetic control subjects, matched by age, sex, and year of death. Death certificates were collected for all case and control subjects. For case subjects with an unclear diagnosis, hospital records and/or forensic autopsy reports were obtained. RESULTS: Mean age- and sex-SMR was 2.15 (95% CI 1.70-2.68) and tended to be higher among females (2.65 vs. 1.93, P = 0.045). Mean age at death was 15.2 years (range 1.2-27.3) and mean duration 8.2 years (0-20.7). Twenty-three deaths were clearly related to diabetes; 20 died of diabetic ketoacidosis. Only two case subjects died with late diabetes complications (acute coronary infarction). Thirty-three case subjects died with a diagnosis not directly related to diabetes; 7 of them committed suicide, and 14 died from accidents. There was no significant difference in traffic accidents (odds ratio 1.02 [95% CI 0.40-2.37]). Obvious suicide tended to be increased but not statistically significantly so (1.55 [0.54-3.89]). Seventeen diabetic case subjects were found deceased in bed without any cause of death found at forensic autopsy. Only two of the control subjects died of similar unexplained deaths. CONCLUSIONS: In a well-developed health care system, there is still a significant excess mortality in young type 1 diabetic patients. We confirm a very large proportion of unexplained deaths in bed, which should be further studied. There is no clear excess death rate caused by suicide or traffic accidents among young diabetic subjects.