The patient with diabetes: preventing cardiovascular complications

In the United States, 18 million adults have diabetes and an additional 16 million have impaired glucose tolerance. Of these patients, 75% will die of some form of heart or vascular disease. Furthermore, recent data suggest that even prediabetic patients are at increased risk for cardiovascular (CV) events. Patients with diabetes often have multiple comorbid CV risk factors (e.g., dyslipidemia, hypertension, hyperglycemia) that synergistically interact to accelerate the pathogenesis of CV disease and dramatically increase the risk for CV events. For example, compared with patients without diabetes, patients with diabetes have a 3- to 5-fold increased risk of death due to congestive heart disease at every cholesterol level and are at increased risk for hypertension and hypertension-related CV events. Patients with diabetes are likely to benefit from intensive therapy incorporating multiple CV risk-reduction strategies. Lipid-modification--primarily reducing levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and triglycerides and increasing high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) through pharmacologic and lifestyle intervention--is an integral part of such therapy. Patients with diabetes will also benefit from intensive blood pressure-lowering therapy with multiple classes of antihypertensives including angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers in particular, as well as concomitant antiplatelet therapy. An intensive risk-reduction approach combining these treatments would dramatically reduce the incidence of CV morbidity and mortality in this high-risk patient population.