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# Type 2 diabetes increases risk of  cardiovascular disease
- URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/type_2_diabetes_cardiovascular_disease_0202131035/
- Published: 2013-02-02T11:33:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T16:21:04.000Z
- Description: A Current Cardiology Reports review by Kuusisto and Laakso says type 2 diabetes raises cardiovascular risk two- to fourfold. In a Finnish population study, diabetic patients on medication faced the same seven-year heart attack risk as non-diabetics who had already had one.
- Author: Food Consumer
- Tags: Disease, Health News, #vivvo-import

By Jimmy Downs

Saturday Feb 2, 2013 (foodconsumer.org) -- If you suffered heart attack (myocardial infarction), you are at higher risk for the same medical event than others. A review article recently published in Current Cardiology Reports suggests that having type 2 diabetes mellitus may have the same effect as having myocardial infarction on the risk of future cardiovascular disease (CVD) like myocardial infarction.

J. Kuusisto and M. Laakso from Kuopio University Hospital and University of Eastern Finland in Kuopio, Finland reported that type 2 diabetes increases risk of cardiovascular disease by 2 to 4 fold.

The authors conducted a large Finnish population-based study released in 1998 and found patients type 2 diabetes who used anti-diabetes medications were at the same risk of fatal and nonfatal myocardial infarction during a 7-year follow as non-diabetic patients who suffered myocardial infarction.

This finding suggests that having type 2 diabetes and using medication were equivalent to having a prior myocardial infarction when it comes to their effect on future cardiovascular events. The study per se could not tell the increase in the risk of cardiovascular disease/events were due to the medication or type 2 diabetes though.

A similar finding was derived from another large study of 3.3 million residents of Denmark in which patients required to take glucose-lowering therapy were found at a risk for cardiovascular disease as those non-diabetic patients who had ever suffered myocardial infarction.

However, not all other studies came to the same or a similar conclusion. Some have shown that type 2 diabetes is a cardiovascular disease equivalent only in some groups, but many found negative associations between the two diseases.

The reviewers explained that "This is likely to be due to many differences across the studies published, for example ethnicity, gender, age and other demographic factors of the populations involved, study design, validation of diabetes status and CVD (cardiovascular disease) events, statistical analyses (adjustments for confounding factors), duration of diabetes, and treatment of hyperglycemia among diabetic participants."

They concluded "Varying results reflect the fact that not all diabetic patients are at a similar risk for CVD." 

They suggested that "CVD risk assessment and the tailoring of preventive measures should be done individually, taking into consideration each patient's long-term risk of developing cardiovascular events."

Having type 2 diabetes can cause a series of other medical conditions including heart disease and cancer among others. 

Luckily, both type 2 diabetes and hear disease are easy to prevent in many cases.