Research

Hormonal

The risk of cardiovascular disease (myocardial infarction and stroke) is significantly elevated during the prediabetic phase, starting at least 15 years before the clinical diagnosis of type 2 diabetes.

If you have risk factors for diabetes (such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or family history), your cardiovascular risk is already elevated, even if you haven't been diagnosed with diabetes yet. Do not wait for a diabetes diagnosis to aggressively manage blood pressure, cholesterol, and lifestyle factors, as the 'clock' for heart disease starts ticking years in advance.

StrongSupportsHIGH confidence
Our data indicate a substantially elevated risk of CVD before clinical diagnosis of type 2 diabetes in women... The risk for CVD began to increase at least 15 years before diabetes diagnosis.
Frank B. Hu et al. · Diabetes Care · 2002

Why this rating

Large prospective cohort (NHS), 20-year follow-up, 117,629 participants, rigorous adjustment for confounders.

Source

Elevated Risk of Cardiovascular Disease Prior to Clinical Diagnosis of Type 2 Diabetes

Frank B. Hu et al. · Diabetes Care · 2002

DOI 10.2337/diacare.25.7.1129

cohort · n=117629Cited 562×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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