At Best, Type 1 Diabetes Doubles Death Risk

No matter how well they control their blood sugar, people with type 1 diabetes have at least twice the normal risk of early death, a new study finds. The study included 34,000 people with type 1 diabetes. They were compared with nearly 170,000 non-diabetics. Their average age was 36 when the study began. Researchers kept track of them for an average of 8 years. During the study, 8% of those with diabetes and 2.9% of non-diabetics died. About 2.7% of diabetics and 0.9% of the other group died of heart disease or stroke. Risk of death was even higher for diabetics with poor control of their blood sugar. Those with the highest average blood sugar were 8.5 times as likely to die as those without diabetes. Their heart-related death rates were 10.5 times as high. Diabetics with the lowest average blood sugar were 2.4 times as likely to die during the study as those without diabetes.