Research

Hormonal

Type 2 diabetes mellitus in women is associated with a dramatically increased risk of fatal coronary heart disease (CHD) and all-cause mortality, with risk levels comparable to or exceeding those of women with prior CHD but no diabetes.

If you are a woman with type 2 diabetes, your risk of dying from heart disease is extremely high—comparable to a man with diabetes or a woman who has already had a heart attack. You must treat your cardiovascular risk factors (blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking) with the same aggression as someone who has already had cardiac events. Do not assume you are 'low risk' because you haven't had symptoms yet.

StrongSupportsVERY_HIGH confidence
Our data indicate that among women, history of diabetes is associated with dramatically increased risks of death from all causes and fatal CHD. The combination of diabetes and prior CHD identifies particularly high-risk women.
Frank B. Hu et al. · Archives of Internal Medicine · 2001

Why this rating

Large prospective cohort (N=121,046), long follow-up (20 years), high follow-up rate (>98%), and rigorous case confirmation.

Source

The Impact of Diabetes Mellitus on Mortality From All Causes and Coronary Heart Disease in Women

Frank B. Hu et al. · Archives of Internal Medicine · 2001

DOI 10.1001/archinte.161.14.1717

cohort · n=121046Cited 537×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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