Title:Assessing Cardiovascular Risk in Patients with Diabetes: An Update
Volume: 16
Issue: 4
Author(s): Christos Damaskos*, Nikolaos Garmpis, Paraskevi Kollia, Georgios Mitsiopoulos, Danai Barlampa, Athanasios Drosos, Alexandros Patsouras, Nikolaos Gravvanis, Vasileios Antoniou, Alexandros Litos and Evangelos Diamantis
Affiliation:
- Second Department of Propedeutic Surgery, Laiko General Hospital, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens,Greece
Keywords:
Diabetes, cardiovascular risk, risk assessment, biomarkers, low density lipoprotein, coronary heart disease.
Abstract: The globalization of the Western lifestyle has resulted in increase of diabetes mellitus, a
complex, multifactorial disease. Diabetes mellitus is a condition often related to the disorders of the
cardiovascular system. It is well established that three quarters of diabetics, aged over 40, will die
from cardiovascular disease and are more likely than non-diabetics to die from their first cardiovascular
event. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to individualize treatment via risk stratification.
Conditions that increase cardiovascular risk in people with diabetes include age more than 40
years, male gender, history of relative suffering from premature CHD, blood pressure and high
LDL levels, presence of microalbuminuria, obstructive sleepapnea, erectile dysfunction and other
conditions.
Several models have been developed in order to assess cardiovascular risk in people with and without
diabetes. Some of them have been proven to be inadequate while others are widely used for
years. An emerging way of risk assessment in patients with diabetes mellitus is the use of biomarkers
but a lot of research needs to be done in this field in order to have solid conclusions.
