medwireNews: Study results presented at the 2018 Diabetes UK Professional Conference in London confirm that people who are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes at a younger age have an increased mortality risk.
In an analysis of data from 2.7 million type 2 diabetes patients in the UK National Diabetes Audit, Naomi Holman (University of Glasgow, UK) and fellow researchers found that people who were diagnosed at an age of 20–39 years had a 2.5-fold higher risk for mortality over approximately 6 years of follow-up than those diagnosed aged 60 years and over after adjustment for age and sex.
The association was attenuated, but still statistically significant, after further adjustment for factors including smoking, ethnicity, glycated hemoglobin, blood pressure, and BMI, with type 2 diabetes patients in the younger age group having a 1.5-fold increased risk compared with older patients.
Talking to the press, Holman summarized that patients who develop type 2 diabetes at an earlier age have a “much higher” risk for mortality, and a “large proportion” of the association is explained by their poor cardiovascular risk profile.
She noted, however, that a “very different pattern” was observed for type 1 diabetes patients, in whom there was no significant association between age at diagnosis and mortality risk.
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