Suboptimal Use of Cardioprotective Drugs in Newly Treated Elderly Individuals With Type 2 Diabetes

C ardiovascular disease is the maincomplication experienced by el-derly individuals with diabetes (1). Despite randomized trials showing the benefits of individual (2–4) or combined (5) pharmacological treatments of cardio-vascular risk factors in diabetes, observa-tional studies have shown suboptimal use of medications (6–8). However, little is known about the use of cardioprotective medication among elderly individuals who were not already taking it before di-abetes treatment was undertaken. We therefore studied a population of elderly individuals with type 2 diabetes in the province of Quebec, Canada, who had not been treated with any antihyperten-sive, lipid-lowering, or antiplatelet drugs in the year before oral antidiabetes drug initiation. We assessed whether they used a comprehensive cardioprotective regi-men (CCR) of those three medications in the year following oral antidiabetic initia-tion. We also identified the determinants of a CCR use.