Alcohol has become an important cause of death among patients with type 1 diabetes since the 1980s, according to a new research published online in the journal BMJ.
The study, carried out by scientists in Finland, also suggests that people who developed type 1 diabetes early on in life are living longer today than thirty years ago, while those who developed the condition later in life are not.
The research team compared short and long-term mortality trends by evaluating 17,306 type 1 diabetes patients who were diagnosed with the condition between 1970 and 1999.
They found that early onset type 1 diabetes (age 0 - 14 years) survival rates have improved since the 1980s, but survival of patients with late onset type1 diabetes between the ages of 15 to 29 years has decreased over the same period.
According to the authors, the main reason the decline in late onset type1 diabetes survival rates is an increase in drug and alcohol-related mortality, as well as acute diabetes complications. Four in ten deaths among late onset patients were due to alcohol and drug related causes.
The scientists said the study "highlights the importance of permanent and long lasting doctor-patient relationships, close supervision, and guidance on the short term and long term effects of alcohol in young people with type 1 diabetes, especially in our alcohol permissive cultures".
Alcohol Related Deaths Up Considerably Among Type 1 Diabetics
Mon, 12 Sep 2011
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