Diabetes and Heart Disease
WLR's dietitian Juliette Kellow
reports on new research published in The Lancet which shows that
people with diabetes are at risk of developing heart disease at a much
earlier age than non-diabetic people.
Diabetics at Earlier Risk of Heart Disease
By WLR Dietitian
Most health experts agree that people with diabetes have an
increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) regardless of
their age. Now, new research published in medical journal The
Lancet shows that diabetes puts people at risk of CVD at a much
earlier age than non-diabetic people.
The researchers found that
those people with diabetes moved into the high-risk category for CVD about 15 years earlier than those without diabetes – at the
age of 48 for men and 41 for women. However, people under the
age of 40 didn’t seem to have an increased risk.
Dr Gillian
Booth, one of the researchers says, “Middle aged and older
people with diabetes seem, on average, to be at high risk of
heart disease, thus aggressive risk-reduction strategies are
warranted for them.”
WLR says:
Diabetes currently affects 1.9 million people in the
UK – and it’s estimated there are another 600,000 people who have
not yet been diagnosed. Being overweight is a major risk factor
for type 2 diabetes and CVD. If you want to reduce your risk of
developing heart disease and diabetes, it’s important to take
action and shift those pounds if you need to.
More information
Diabetes: visit Diabetes UK at
www.diabetes.org.uk
Heart Disease: visit the British Heart
Foundation at www.bhf.org.uk
Weight Loss Resources provides tools and information to help
you lose weight by following a healthy diet and getting your
nutritional balance right.
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