With almost no rigorous scientific study of type 1 diabetes, there has been no clear road map for managing conditions that can result from the disorder, such as heart and kidney disease. Individuals with type 1 diabetes have a life expectancy 13 years shorter than average, and cardiovascular disease is the primary cause of that shortened life expectancy.
To fill this void, a group of endocrinologists has drafted a peer-reviewed standard-of-care document designed to guide primary-care physicians, who provide frontline treatment to 50% of adults with type 1 diabetes.
“We have all these great studies of cardiovascular risk prevention in type 2 diabetes,” said study co-author Irl Hirsch, professor of medicine, Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition, and UW Medicine’s diabetes treatment and teaching chair. “Here in the United States, we have 1.8 million people with type 1 diabetes and yet we have almost no direct studies. I went to the New England Journal of Medicine and said, ‘Look, this is a huge problem.’
“If you go around the world and you look at the guidelines, there’s not complete agreement, especially when we start looking at diabetes in adolescents and young adults.”
