KYIV, UKRAINE – MAY 24, 2023 – A citizen receives free diabetes screening and blood … [+]
A recent study found that men with diabetes (types 1 and a pair of) are much more more likely to have comorbidities akin to heart problems (CVD), kidney complications, and foot or leg complications than women with diabetes.
“Although the prevalence of diabetes is similar in men and women (global prevalence of 8.9% and 8.4%, respectively), the incidence and course of diabetes-related complications appear to be more gender-specific,” the authors wrote of their study, which was published in Journal of Epidemiology and Public Health.
“Our study shows that men with diabetes have a 1.5-fold increased risk of cardiovascular disease, lower extremity complications and kidney complications, and the risk of diabetic retinopathy is 14% higher in men than in women. The higher risk of cardiovascular complications observed in men in our study is consistent with other large population-based studies in France and Denmark,” the authors continued. “Men are more likely to be overweight, have a history of heart disease or stroke and are former smokers. Men may also be less likely to use primary prevention strategies, such as healthy lifestyle and medication, and engage in fewer health-promoting behaviors, such as preventive health checks.”
“In addition, women are known to be at lower risk of cardiovascular complications compared to men due to protective effects of reproductive factors such as breastfeeding and the use of hormone replacement therapy within ten years of menopause,” they added.
Men with diabetes are at increased risk for cardiovascular diseases akin to ischemic heart disease, transient ischemic attack (TIA), stroke, heart failure and diabetic cardiomyopathy.
Surprisingly, the study showed that girls with diabetes were at higher risk of eye complications as a consequence of retinopathy than their male counterparts. The researchers suspected that this is perhaps because cataracts are more common in women than in men.
Lead creator Alice Gibson of the University of Sydney and her colleagues analyzed data from 25,713 diabetics from the Sax Institute’s 45 and Up study, which provided detailed information on all and sundry’s socioeconomic status and health and lifestyle details.
Of the 25,713 study participants, 57% were men over 45 years of age. Among the male participants, 38.7% were chubby, in comparison with 27.8% of the ladies included within the study’s data sample.
Smoking was also far more common amongst men (51% in comparison with just 29% amongst women). “Our results suggest that for every 1,000 people with diabetes, an average of 37, 52, 21 and 32 people will develop cardiovascular disease, eye, leg and kidney complications each year,” the authors noted.
“Although men with diabetes are at higher risk for complications, particularly cardiovascular disease, kidney and leg complications, complication rates are high in both sexes. The similar sex difference between individuals with shorter compared to those with longer diabetes duration highlights the need for targeted complication screening and prevention strategies from the time of diabetes diagnosis. Further investigation of the underlying mechanisms for the observed sex differences in diabetes complications is needed to enable targeted interventions,” they concluded.
