Does diabetes mellitus increase the incidence of coronary artery disease?
Autopsy studies demonstrate a significantly higher incidence of coronary artery occlusions in diabetic patients compared to nondiabetics.
THE INCIDENCE of coronary artery disease in diabetic persons has been investigated repeatedly at autopsy, with general agreement that severe coronary arteriosclerosis is more frequent in the diabetic than in the nondiabetic patient.1Of 316 patients with diabetes over the age of 40 included in the report of Root, Bland, Gordon and White,1a38.2 per cent of the men and 32.2 per cent of the women had coronary artery occlusions. The same study demonstrated such occlusions in only 9.9 per cent of 1,521 nondiabetic men and in 4.9 per cent of 789 nondiabetic women, all over the age of 40. In the same age group Enklewitz1bfound coronary artery occlusions in 31.8 per cent of 261 persons with diabetes. In the hearts of a group of unselected patients studied by an improved technic of injection plus dissection for the detection of pathologic alterations in the coronary arteries,
S.D. Stearns (1947) studied this question.