Adults with early-onset type 2 diabetes are almost four times more likely to die than the general population
A team of researchers has analysed the evolution of 4,550 people aged 25 to 65 diagnosed with type 2 diabetes who had been studied for 30 years in the UK. They found that those diagnosed before the age of 40 had a risk of dying almost four times higher than in the general population. If diagnosed later, the risk was 1.5 times higher. The authors publish their findings in the journal The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.
Alberto Goday - riesgo muerte diabetes EN
Albert Goday Arno
Professor of Endocrinology in the Department of Medicine and Life Sciences at Pompeu Fabra University, Emeritus Head of the Endocrinology and Nutrition Service at Hospital del Mar in Barcelona and President of the Advisory Council on Diabetes in Catalonia of the Generalitat de Catalunya
It is a very interesting study. It is of good quality, because it does a new analysis, mortality and long-term, of a study, the UKPDS [English Prospective Diabetes Study], which has been emblematic and essential in diabetology for the last 40 years.
It fits that type 2 diabetes is a potentially serious and mortality-increasing disease, with no doubt about it. And it provides further evidence for the concept that type 2 diabetes is a heterogeneous disease, with subtypes with different prognoses, in this case depending on age.
[Regarding limitations] This study refers to people who were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes 40 years ago, and in those days the therapeutic offer was much more limited than today, which is better. Therefore, people with diabetes today will have a better long-term prognosis.
Lin et al.
- Research article
- Peer reviewed
- Observational study
- People
