‘Diabetes takes away the protective factor’
to the Cleveland Clinic. Women with diabetes are twice as likely to suffer a second heart attack, and four times as likely to suffer heart failure as are women who do not have the disease, according to the American Diabetes Association.
“The risk of developing hypertension doubles in men and quadruples in women if you have diabetes,” Maric-Bilkan said. (Hypertension is a major contributor to heart disease.)
“There is something about diabetes that takes away the protective factor” against heart disease that pre-menopausal women seem to have, something probably related to oestrogen, she said. “Women are not impacted by heart disease as much as men at younger ages, but once they have diabetes, that protection is lost – and diabetes has an overall greater impact on women, compared with men, at all ages.”
In 2011, Maric-Bilkan tested a small group of pre-menopausal Finnish women with Type 1 diabetes and found that they all had lower-than-normal oestrogen levels.
“I don’t know if they got diabetes because their oestrogen levels were reduced, or the reverse,” she said.
“One thought is that it’s the oestrogen that gives protection, but men with diabetes, who also have a greater risk of heart disease, have high oestrogen and low testosterone, the opposite of women. So the high oestrogen doesn’t protect men.
“Diabetic women have more testosterone than non-diabetic women, so it may have to do with the balance of hormones,” Maric-Bilkan added.
She said the risk of death from heart disease “is exceptionally high in women with early-onset (Type 1) diabetes compared with women in the general population”.
“Women with diabetes need to understand that the risk of getting heart disease is significant, and they need to be aware of it,” she said. – The Washington Post