[Women and diabetes]

The objective of the work was to assess, based on the results of studies conducted abroad and the author's own results from the Prague register of diabetic patients, whether there exist differences in the epidemiology, clinical course of diabetes mellitus (DM) and its complications between female and male diabetics. As far as type 1 DM is concerned there are significant differences in the clinical course of diabetes, i.e. deteriorated compensation of DM in girls and women in conjunction with menstruation and the menopause. As compared with men, young women have a higher mortality on account of diabetic nephropathy, and at any age they have as higher incidence of hypertension. In DM2 they have also a high incidence of hypertension and risk of compensation of DM during menstruation and later during the menopause. A significantly less frequent complication in women is ischaemia of the lower extremities. From the epidemiological aspect a higher prevalence of DM2 was proved in women after the age of 65 years.