Diabetic women more likely to have heart problems

Type 2 diabetes, arguably the world's fastest-growing chronic condition, really has it in for women, says a new study. Compared with diabetic men, diabetic women are 44 percent more likely to suffer coronary heart disease, the leading cause of death for men and women alike in the United States.

Women with diabetes were also 44 percent more likely than men with the condition to die of heart disease, the study found.

The study in the European journal Diabetologia follows recent work published in the Lancet by the same authors. That study found that a diabetic woman is on average 25 percent more likely to suffer stroke than a diabetic man.

The findings on diabetes' gender difference emerge from a new meta-analysis - an aggregation of findings from separate but similar studies. The authors, a team of epidemiologists from Britain, Australia, and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, suggest that the stage is most likely set for women's greater risk of heart disease during the prediabetic state. During that period, affected women tend to be fatter than diabetic men, and their risk factors for heart attack - often unrecognized and untreated by physicians - are both "chronically elevated" and mounting quickly, the authors said.

They say their findings should mobilize new efforts to identify and treat prediabetes earlier in women. Prediabetes is defined as blood sugar levels that are above normal but that fall short of the clinical definition of diabetes. - Los Angeles Times