September 13, 2010
View Full PaperFramingham Study Insights on Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease
Key Result
Prospective 20-year data confirmed that diabetes increases the risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular events, revealing greater vulnerability in women compared to men.
Study Design
Type
Cohort
Structured PICO
Does diabetes increase the risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular events in a general population sample, and does this risk differ between women and men?
P
Population
General population sample
I
Intervention
Diabetes (exposure)
C
Comparator
No diabetes / Men vs Women
O
Outcome
Atherosclerotic cardiovascular events (peripheral artery disease, coronary disease, and strokes)hard clinical
The study provided robust 20-year prospective data confirming that diabetes is a major risk factor for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, with a particularly high impact in women.
Abstract
study findings with more-robust 20-year data for esti-mating the relative risk of specified atherosclerotic car-diovascular events from prior diabetes. It prospectively compared the cardiovascular impact of diabetes in women vs men, revealing the greater vulnerability in women. The role of diabetes as a contributor to athero-sclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD) was uncertain at the time of the report, with some doubting whether diabetes actually caused coronary disease. This and prior Framingham study reports confirmed prospec-tively in a general population sample the clinical obser-vations of medical practitioners—that their patients with diabetes had excessive occurrence of peripheral artery disease, coronary disease, and strokes. The re-port also highlighted the less appreciated fact of a high