Type 1 diabetes still shortens life span, Scottish study finds

Despite major medical advances over the past three decades, a 20 year old woman with type 1 diabetes can still expect to live 13 years less than someone without the condition, a large Scottish study has concluded.1 For men the estimated life expectancy loss is 11 years.

The prospective cohort study, published in JAMA, found that even in the absence of renal complications mortality from cardiovascular disease remained significantly more in people with type 1 diabetes than in the population without diabetes.

Intensive insulin treatment is now the standard of care, and over the past 30 years significant advances have been made in insulin delivery and glucose monitoring that help in the management of type 1 diabetes. Yet for many people with type 1 diabetes glycaemic control remains suboptimal, and acute and chronic complications from diabetes persist, reducing life expectancy.

Researchers from Dundee University used a national registry of patients …