PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Hillier, Teresa A.
AU  - Pedula, Kathryn L.
TI  - Complications in Young Adults With Early-Onset Type 2 Diabetes
AID  - 10.2337/diacare.26.11.2999
DP  - 2003 Nov 01
TA  - Diabetes Care
PG  - 2999--3005
VI  - 26
IP  - 11
4099  - http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/26/11/2999.short
4100  - http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/26/11/2999.full
SO  - Diabetes Care2003 Nov 01; 26
AB  - OBJECTIVE—To determine whether adults diagnosed with type 2 diabetes from age 18 to 44 years more aggressively develop clinical complications after diagnosis than adults diagnosed at ≥45 years of age. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—We compared outcomes among 7,844 adults in a health maintenance organization who were newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes between 1996 and 1998. We abstracted clinical data from electronic medical, laboratory, and pharmacy records. To adjust for length of follow-up and sex, we used proportional hazards models to compare incident complication rates through 2001 between onset groups (mean follow-up 3.9 years). To adjust for the increasing prevalence of macrovascular disease with advancing age, onset groups were matched by age and sex to control subjects without diabetes for macrovascular outcomes. RESULTS—Adults with early-onset type 2 diabetes were 80% more likely to begin insulin therapy than those with usual-onset type 2 diabetes (hazards ratio [HR] 1.8, 95% CI 1.5–2.0), despite a similar average time to requiring insulin (∼2.2 years). Although the combined risk of microvascular complications did not differ overall, microalbuminuria was more likely in early-onset type 2 diabetes than usual-onset type 2 diabetes (HR 1.2, 95% CI 1.1–1.4). The hazard of any macrovascular complication in early-onset type 2 diabetic patients compared with control subjects was twice as high in usual-onset type 2 diabetic patients compared with control subjects (HR 7.9 vs. 3.8, respectively). Myocardial infarction (MI) was the most common macrovascular complication, and the hazard of developing an MI in early-onset type 2 diabetic patients was 14-fold higher than in control subjects (HR 14.0, 95% CI 6.2–31.4). In contrast, adults with usual-onset type 2 diabetes had less than four times the risk of developing an MI compared with control subjects (HR 3.7, P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS—Early-onset type 2 diabetes appears to be a more aggressive disease from a cardiovascular standpoint. Although the absolute rate of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is higher in older adults, young adults with early-onset type 2 diabetes have a much higher risk of CVD relative to age-matched control subjects.