Study: Type 1 Diabetes Doubles Mortality Risk

Despite good glycemic control (6.9% or lower), individuals with type 1 diabetes could still have twice the mortality risk compared to the general population, according to a recent study.

“The excess risk of death from any cause and of death from cardiovascular causes is unknown among patients with type 1 diabetes and various levels of glycemic control,” said the study’s authors.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

RELATED CONTENT
Exercise Can Improve Glycemic Control: How to Get Patients Started
Poor Glycemic Control Leads to Higher Risk of Wound Complications
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“We conducted a registry-based observational study to determine the excess risk of death according to the level of glycemic control in a Swedish population of patients with diabetes,” they said.

For the study, researchers compared 33,915 participants (mean 35.8 years of age) from the Swedish National diabetes Register with type 1 diabetes to 169,249 individuals (mean 35.7 years of age) without diabetes.

According to researchers, 5 controls were selected from the general population at random and matched to each type 1 diabetes patient based on sex, age, and county. The patients and controls had a mean follow-up of 8.0 years and 8.3 years, respectively.

The study showed that 2701 of the type 1 diabetes patients died (8%) compared to 4835 of the control participants (2.9%).  Further, the corresponding death rates due to cardiovascular causes were 2.7% and 0.9%.

The investigators noted that the rates of all cause mortality based on glycated hemoglobin levels for type 1 diabetes patients compared to controls were 2.36 for a glycated hemoglobin level of 6.9% or lower.

The complete study is published in the November issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

-Michelle Canales

Reference:

1. Lind M, Svensson AM, Kosiborod M, et al. Glycemic control and exceess mortality in type 1 diabetes.  NEJM. 2014 November [epub ahead of print] doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1408214.