Two new studies published in the magazine «Diabetologia», official body of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), the life expectancy of patients with type 1 diabetes, although it has improved in recent years, it remainslower than that of the population not suffered by the disease.
As Lars Stena explains, from the Norwegian Public Health Institute in Oslo (Norway) in an editorial of the same number of the magazine, «it seems that the gap in life expectancy between people with type 1 diabetes and the general population has remained unchangedfrom the beginning of the millennium ».
less life expectancy
In the first of the studies, researchers at the Baker IDI Institute for the heart and diabetes in Melbourne (Australia) analyzed the life expectancy associated with type 1 diabetes in the Australian population between 1997 and 2010 and compared it with that ofThe general population.
The results showed that the life expectancy of the patients during this period was 68.8 years, which represents 12.2 years less than in the case of the general population - 11.6 years less in the event that the patientBe male and 12.5 years less in the event that she is a woman.
In this context, and compared to the 1997-2003 period, the study shows the greatest life expectancy of patients with type 1 diabetes in the period 2004-2010.But as the authors indicate, «since this increase in life expectancy is very similar to that observed in the general population, it has not been achieved that the gap between patients with type 1 diabetes and the population without the disease has been closedduring this period ».
More;60% of the years of life lost by disease in men - and 45% in women - is explained by the deaths that occurred before reaching the age of 60 years, mainly due to endocrine and metabolic diseases between 10 and39 years of age and cardiovascular diseases once exceeded 40.
As indicated by Dianna Magliano, director of the study, «the early presentation of type 1 diabetes acts as a predictor of premature mortality.Deaths due to cardiovascular, metabolic and endocrine diseases are the main cause of premature mortality in type 1 diabetes. Thus, and in order to improve their life expectancy, greater attention must be paid to chronic cardiovascular complications and metabolic complicationsAcute in type 1 diabetes and that is that the failure when handling any of these complications will mean that people with type 1 diabetes continue to have a remarkable risk of premature death ».
The gap in life expectancy between people with type 1 diabetes and the general population has remained unchanged since the beginning of the Milleniolars Sten
And these evidences that verify a gap in life expectancy between patients and the general population, are they also applicable to our country?Yes, since as Dianna Magliano concludes, "our results are applicable to other Western countries."That is, life expectancy in our country is greater than in Australia, but gap between the hopes of the population with diabetes and without the disease can be expected to be very similar.
'stagnant' advances'
For its part, the second of the studies, led by researchers from the University of Gothenburg (Sweden), was carried out to evaluate the life expectancy associated with type 1 diabetes in the National Registry of Diabetes de Sweden (NDR).
The results show a life expectancy of 47.7 additional years in the 2002-2006 and 49.7-year additional period in the 2007-2011 period for men with type 1 diabetes once they have turned 20.A life expectancy that, meanwhile,It was practically similar for both periods in the case of women who reached the age of 20 –51.7 additional years in the period 2002-2006 and 51.9 additional years in the period 2007-2011.
The reason for these increases in life expectancy fundamentally obeys the remarkable decrease in cardiovascular mortality of these patients, both women and male.But as in the Australian study, «the same increase in life expectancy was observed in the general population, so the gap in life expectancy between patients with type 1 diabetes and the population without the disease does notHe has changed over time, establishing himself in about 11 years for men and in approximately 12 years for women ».
As Björn Eliasson, director of this research, concludes, «there is still much to do in terms of improving the care of patients with type 1 diabetes in order to close the gap with the general population.A significant proportion of patients has high blood glucose levels, and our results warn about marked differences in mortality depending on the levels are well or poorly controlled ».
