HEALTH - Dibetic Deaths Drop

"Steep Fall in Death Rates Among Diabetics" By NICHOLAS BAKALAR, New York Times 5/28/2012

Death rates among people with diabetes have declined substantially in recent years, according to a survey conducted by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.

Since 1997 the C.D.C. has done five surveys of people with and without diabetes, each sampling about 107,000 adults. Compared with the 1997-98 figures, 2006 death rates from cardiovascular disease had declined 40 percent and all-cause mortality had declined 23 percent among people with diabetes, even after the researchers controlled for age and other health factors. Death rates also declined among those who did not have diabetes, but the decline was not as steep.

The study, in the June issue of Diabetes Care, attributes the progress to advances in medical care and self-management.

But every silver lining has a cloud.

“The good thing is that people with diabetes are living longer,” said one of the authors, Sharon Saydah, a senior research scientist with the C.D.C. “But people with diabetes are at risk for a number of complications — cardiovascular disease, lower leg amputations, kidney disease, eye problems, dementia and other kinds of disability. Preventing all of these complications means that we will have greater health care expenses for people living with diabetes.”