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Diabetes At A Younger Age Reduces Life Expectancy By Almost 8 Years, Says New Study

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New findings presented today suggest that “type 2 diabetes has a greater effect on the life expectancy of women, smokers and those diagnosed at a younger age.”

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) has a stronger impact on mortality and life expectancy in women, younger individuals, and smokers, according to the latest report being discussed at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Stockholm, Sweden (19-23 September).

The average lifespan of a woman in the general population is 80.5 years, so a woman with T2D has a 60% higher risk of dying prematurely and will live 5 years less than the average woman. Meanwhile, modelling by Mike Stedman of Res Consortium, a healthcare consultancy in Andover, UK, Dr. Adrian Heald of Salford Royal Hospital, Salford, UK, and colleagues shows that men with T2D have a 44% greater chance of dying early and living 4.5 years shorter.

People with T2D have a ten-year-shorter life expectancy if they smoke, and an eight-year shorter life expectancy if they are diagnosed before the age of 65.

T2D is the most common form of diabetes, affecting 3.5 million individuals in the UK, and its number is predicted to grow. Although it typically affects adults in their middle years and older, early onset is becoming increasingly widespread worldwide.

In England, people with diabetes are known to have a 50–70% higher risk of dying before their natural death than people without diabetes (this is known as the age-standardised mortality ratio or SMR).

However, how demographic and lifestyle factors could alter the magnitude of this risk is poorly understood.

Over a ten-year period, researchers in Salford, UK calculated the life expectancy of people with T2D and compared it to that of the general population of people of the same age and sex. The study included 11,806 people with T2D (55% male, average age of 66.2 years).

Then, they looked at how demographic and lifestyle factors affected the people with T2D’s death rate and how long they could expect to live.

The information used included health records from 2010 to 2020 for the participants (ending before the COVID-19 pandemic), statistics on life expectancy from the Office for National Statistics, and data from the Index of Multiple Deprivation.

During the ten years of the study, 3,921 of the participants died (2,080 men), which was more than the expected 2,135. This gave a standardised mortality ratio (SMR) of 1.84, which means that people with diabetes had an 84% higher risk of dying young than the rest of the population.

Women with T2D had a 96% higher chance of dying prematurely than men with T2D (74% higher risk).

Researchers were surprised by this because T2D is usually thought to upset men’s health more than women’s.

The results were still much higher for people with T2D when deprivation levels were taken into consideration (Salford is one of the most deprived regions in England).

When deprivation was taken into account, a woman with T2D had a 60% higher risk of dying early than someone in the general population, while a man had a 44% higher risk.

The findings also imply that younger T2D diagnoses have a bigger impact on life expectancy. In comparison to those of the same age in the general population, those diagnosed before the age of 65 had a 93% higher risk of dying young and lived more than eight years less on average. Those 65 and up who were diagnosed lost less than 2 years of life.

Smoking most affected T2D mortality and life expectancy. According to the modelling, smokers with T2D had a 2.5-fold increased risk of dying young compared to nonsmokers.

Smokers with T2D had a ten-year reduction in life expectancy compared to non-smokers and former smokers, who both lost three years of life expectancy.

Modeling showed that a woman who started smoking before she was 65 was 3.75 times more likely to die before her time and lived 15 years less than a woman of the same age in the general population.

The results suggest “that type 2 diabetes has a greater effect on the life expectancy of women, smokers and those diagnosed at a younger age,” says Dr. Heald, highlighting “a woman with type 2 diabetes, for example, might live five years less than the average woman in the general population, while someone diagnosed at a younger age might lose eight years of life expectancy.”

According to the researcher, “it is vital that the groups at the highest risk are made aware of not just the increased risk that they face but also the size of the risk.

“Doing so may make the health advice they are given seem more relevant and so help them make changes that can improve their quality – and length – of life.”

Source: EASD 2022 Stockholm abstract 662

Image Credit: Getty

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