Cardiovascular complications of diabetes: prevention and management

Cardiovascular (CV) complications are by far the most prevalent in patients with type 2 diabetes and the principal cause of mortality. Renal complications of type 1 diabetes were the principal cause of death. However, with the advent of dialysis and renal transplantation and because of further increases caused by such management techniques on the already accelerated atherosclerosis of type 1 diabetes patients, CV complications have now become the principal cause of morbidity and mortality. For successful prevention of CV complications in diabetes, clinicians should therefore pay particular attention to the means of attaining goals for the management of established traditional as well as nontraditional CV risk factors. For the most part, such management has been proven to reduce CV events in patients with diabetes, particularly type 2 diabetes.