Have Diabetes? Reduce Your Risk of Heart Problems

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By Hope S. Warshaw, M.S., R.D., CDE, BC-ADM

By taking control of your diabetes, you can cut your heart attack and stroke risk in half. Use these tips to get started.

The good news is that if you’re working to control your diabetes, you’re already on the track to good heart health. People with type 1 diabetes who maintained tight glucose control were 42 percent less likely to have cardiovascular disease and 57 percent less likely to experience a heart attack or stroke, according to a 10-year study.

The treatment strategies to stay healthy are the same for diabetes and heart disease, so why not tackle them together? Fortunately, good blood glucose control can help you improve your blood lipid profiles (cholesterol) and your blood pressure.

“Just having diabetes multiplies the risk for heart disease sixfold and stroke fourfold,” says Francine Kaufman, M.D., head of the Center for Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and author of Diabesity: The Obesity-Diabetes Epidemic That Threatens America (Bantam Books, 2005). “When you have diabetes, your risk of a heart attack is as high as it is for a person without diabetes who’s had a heart attack.”

The first step in protecting your heart is working with your health-care providers to develop a diabetes care plan that gets and keeps your ABCs on target.