[Comparative analysis of electrocardiographic findings in diabetics and metabolically healthy persons]

The electrocardiograms of 447 diabetics and of the same number of non-diabetic test persons who were coordinated as biostatic twins, taking into consideration age, sex, and weight, were evaluated according to the Minnesota-code and compared. The cardiac endangering of the diabetics was most clearly expressed in the larger frequency of infarctions and the chronic-ischaemic heart disease which can be proved in all age groups. Diabetic males with short duration of diabetes showed the highest frequency of infarctions. The frequency of coronaropathy which is not increased in most age groups in the long-term diabetics compared with the control persons characterizes them as a positive selection of diabetics with an apparantly primarily low atherogenic potency. Hypertonus and/or adiposity were concomitant with a nearly doubled frequency of the ischaemic heart disease. The breadth of the P-wave as a possible reference to angiopathic changes in the region of the atrium was significantly larger in the diabetics in all age groups than in the control group.