Endocrine Abstracts

Aim: Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, defined as myocardial infarction (MI), cerebrovascular accident (CVA), peripheral artery disease (PAD), is the main cause of morbidity and mortality in people with diabetes mellitus (DM) and the main cause of health expenditure in these patients.

Like in other parts of the world, a prospective study of the Asturian population showed that the mortality risk due to cardiovascular diseases was significantly higher in women with DM2 than in men.

The aim of this study is to compare the odds ratio of cardiovascular disease in people diagnosed of DM with those not diagnosed of DM based on age and sex, in the Asturian region between 2013 and 2017.

Materials and methods: Data were collected from the Primary Healthcare Clinical Database of the National Health System for the Principality of Asturias, between 2013 and 2017. The people with DM and non–DM were grouped by sex and age (35 to 64 and people over 64 years). In addition, the comorbidities both diagnosed and non–diagnosed were recorded as follows: MI, CVA and PAD.

Odds ratio, confidence intervals (95%) were calculated in R environment. Graphics were performed in GraphPad Prism 8.0.1.

Results: In all the years (2013 to 2017) it was observed that people with DM, regardless of age and sex, were more likely to suffer from any of the three cardiovascular diseases.

When analysing the data stratified by age, people with diabetes between 35 and 64 years are more likely to suffer from MI, CVA or PDA; a progressive decrease in ORs can be perceived from 2013 to 2017, in patients with DM in ages between 35 and 64 suffering from PAD (4.35 [4.06 – 4.66] and 3.09 [2.88 – 3.31] respectively).

When the data is separated by sex, the youngest age group is at greater risk of suffering from any cardiovascular disease. Diabetic women between 35 and 64 years of age were more likely than men to suffer from MI, while the opposite was appreciated for CVA and PDA. Likewise, a tendency to increase the odds from 2013 to 2017 was observed in this group.

Conclusions: Comprehensive and aggressive control of known risk factors for cardiovascular disease is needed in diabetic patients, especially those younger and females, in order to reduce the high prevalence of cardiovascular complications seen in Asturias.