Many articles and videos on this platform discuss the long-term health effects of diabetes. The bottom-line is that people with diabetes have a higher chance of getting a wide variety of serious health problems over time. The most serious ones are blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, heart failure, strokes, amputations, dementia, cancers, and some infections. Compared to people without diabetes, people with diabetes tend to develop these problems at a younger age and more frequently. Sadly, some of these problems can also shorten life. It is for this reason that many people think of diabetes as a disease of accelerated aging. Notably this occurs in people with type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, and any other type of long-standing diabetes mellitus.
That’s clearly the bad news. The good news is that these problems are most frequent in people who are unaware of the fact that they have diabetes or in people who are not treating their diabetes with the best available therapies. Indeed, many research advances over the last 40 years are turning the story around completely. Large, international randomized clinical trials have now clearly shown that modern approaches to managing diabetes can delay, reduce, or even eliminate many of the problems listed above. Some of them are even reversing diabetes.
These developments are driving an emerging consensus that some of these new therapies prolong health-span as well as lifespan and might be slowing the aging process in people with diabetes. Most importantly, most of these therapies are now affordable and can be used together. Also, how and when they should be used is becoming widely known by family doctors, diabetes specialists, heart specialists, kidney specialists, neurologists, nurse practitioners, and other health care professionals. These people are an excellent source of information about what a person with diabetes can do to lead as long, healthy, and disease-free life as possible. Together, this research has completely changed the future outlook for millions of people with diabetes worldwide.
About the author
Hertzel Gerstein
Hertzel is an endocrinologist and professor at McMaster University who is in high demand as a speaker, advocate, and educator on diabetes-related topics. His research focuses on using large, international randomized trials to identify and test new ways of preventing type 2 diabetes, reducing serious health outcomes like strokes and death, and achieving type 2 diabetes remissions.
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