Epidemiology of Diabetes Mellitus and Cardiovascular Disease

Diabetes mellitus (DM) has become a rising epidemic in the last century, more pressing in the last few decades with the exponential rise of obesity, and has become one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Genetic variants have also been a new field of epidemiology research to determine the underlying genetic component of those risk factors and the association of DM with CVD. In light of its significant prevalence, patients remain unaware of their disease progression that arises from genetic and metabolic risk factors. As compared to non-diabetics, those with type 2 DM carry a higher mortality risk from cardiovascular disease (CVD) across different ethnicity groups and sex. The most common cardiovascular manifestations in those with DM include heart failure, peripheral arterial disease, and coronary heart disease. Although DM does predispose patients to CVD, it in fact is not a risk equivalent, but carries significant heterogeneity in risk for CVD.