DIABETES AND CAD. HbA1C AND CARDIAC RISK

For many years, we have always said that diabetes is a cardiovascular disease, meaning that diabetics are at high risk of cardiovascular disease and many of them die from heart disease. The saying is that Diabetes is a CVS risk equivalent.
However the latest study on this subject, published in the July 25th issue of the Arch of Int Medicine, throws more light on this. Dr Nina Paynter and colleagues from the Bringham and Womens hospital, Boston, did an analysis of 10 years followup of diabteics in the 24,000 strong Women Health Study and the 11,000 strong Physician's Health study. Of the whole population, there were 563 and 685 diabetics respectively, in the two cohorts. They were of course matched for the CV events, over 10 years. Dr Paynter and colleagues found that not all diabetics have the same CV risk. Their CV risk could be stratified by their HbA1C levels. Those with high HbA1C had higher CV risk then those with low HbA1C levels, and many of the cohort had low HbA1C levels. In fact, this was a criticism of this study.
Be that as it may, it makes sense, that those diabetics with good control, had lower risk, or those with mild diabetics had lower risk and those with poorly controlled diabetes or more severe diabetes, had higher risk.
There was quite alot of heavy statistics in this article. I have just summarised them.
I suppose this article in many ways confirm that not all diabetics are the same, and HbA1C is a good way to sort out the good ones from the bad.