Cardiovascular Risk in Elderly T2DM Patients

Abstract

Background: The prevalence and incidence of diabetes increase with age. Mostly encountered among adults aged 65 years and older. Individuals with diabetes are at higher risk for cardiovascular disease, and age strongly predicts cardiovascular complications. The aimed study was to evaluate the prevalence of diabetes mellitus and to assess its impact on the risk of cardiovascular diseases for the elderly over 65 years old.

Methods: We performed a cross-section descriptive study of the elderly (aged ≥65 years) from January to December 2019 by using the National Health Information Database. The software SPSS 20.0 version was used for data analyses. A p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results: This study included 1245 patients with T2DM, (46% female and 54% male), with an average age of 71.2 ±8.5. About 43.8% of patients were obese, and the T2DM duration was 12.9 ± 2.4years. Regarding CVD, most of them resulted in hypertension at 59%, MI at 12%, atherosclerosis at 15.1%, coronary heart disease at 21.2%, 1.9% heart failure, angina at 6.4%, and 7.6% stroke.

Conclusion: The prevalence of CVD among our T2DM patients resulted relatively significant. Hypertension, coronary heart disease, and IM were the major contributors to CVD. We recommend more attention to the management of diabetes to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, in late life, in the geriatric population.

Keywords: Diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases, geriatric population