A study finds that women with type 1 diabetes are significantly more likely to die from any cause than men.
Researchers at the University of Queensland, Australia examined data from 26 studies involving more than 200,000 people with type 1 diabetes.
They found that women with type 1 diabetes were 37 per cent more likely to die from any cause, faced a 37 per cent increased risk of stroke, 44 per cent increased risk of kidney disease and nearly double the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
The authors believe that difficulties with glycemic control and insulin management, which are more common among women, could be contributing factors in the increased risk of heart disease.
The marked differences for vascular-related disease between men and women could now have implications for how type 1 diabetes is treated in women.
“We already knew that people with type 1 diabetes have shorter life expectancies than the general population, but this study was able to determine for the first time that the risk of mortality is greater in women than men with the disease,” said lead author Rachel Huxley.
“However, more research is needed to determine why the disease poses a greater risk to women than men,” Huxley added.
The authors of the study pointed out that type 1 diabetes is not linked with an increased risk of death from cancers in either men or women.
The results of the study were published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology.
