Health
Effects of Diabetes
Cardiovascular
disease is the primary complication and cause of death among those
with type 2 diabetes. For this reason, the American College of Physicians
recommends that all patients with type 2 diabetes receive lipid-lowering
therapy regardless of serum cholesterol (patient
summary, with links to guideline & related literature review).
In a similar vein, recent hypertension
guidelines call for more aggressive
treatment of hypertension in diabetics.
Diabetic nephropathy
(kidney disease) is the single most common of kidney failure.
Diabetic retinopathy
and diabetic macular edema (eye diseases) are leading causes of blindness.
Vascular problems
leading to amputation are, unfortunately, not uncommon complications
of type 2 diabetes.
Because of the
specter of all these complications, diabetes needs to be well managed.
From a healthcare delivery standpoint, diabetic patients are twice
as
costly
to manage
as non-diabetic
patients.
