Life expectancy of people with type 1 diabetes is reduced as much as by 11 to 13 years, reveals a Scottish study.
Dr. Helen Colhoun, a clinical professor at the University of Dundee, School of Medicine, who is also the author of the latest study suggests that men with type 1 diabetes may lose around 11 years of their life and women with the disease can lose up to 13 years of their life in comparison to people who do not have this medical condition.
The study suggests that diabetes usually has an impact on an individual's heart health, which causes the estimated reduction in life expectancy. The researchers also found that patients under the age of 50 years are at higher risk of death as they are not managing the treatment of the disease properly. Some causes of deaths among diabetic patients less than 50 years are very low blood sugar and ketoacidosis, which is a complication that arises due to deficiency of insulin.
"These conditions really reflect the day-to-day challenge that people with type 1 diabetes continue to face, how to get the right amount of insulin delivered at the right time to deal with your blood sugar levels," says Colhoun.
The study examined data of more than 24,000 people suffering with type 1 diabetes from 2008 to 2010. The study found that if a person had the disease at 20 years, then the average life expectancy was 66 years for men and 68 years for women. In comparison to diabetic individuals, non-diabetic individuals had an average life expectancy of 77 years for men and 81 years for women.
The researchers found that people who took good care of the disease and whose kidney function was well-preserved, also had reduced life expectancy by up to 8 years.
"Overall, the largest percentage of the estimated loss in life expectancy was related to ischemic heart disease, but death from diabetic coma or the condition ketoacidosis was associated with the largest percentage of the estimated loss occurring before age 50 years," per the study.
It may be disheartening for people suffering from the disease to know that their life expectancy is reduced but the gap is narrowed as previous studies indicated that patients may lose up to 27 years of their life to the disease.
The study stressed that the reduced years of life is just an average estimate. People with the disease may still live longer.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveals that more than 29 million Americans have diabetes and only 5 percent of them suffer from type 1 diabetes.
The study has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
