Can diabetes shorten your lifespan?
Will diabetes shorten my life? In the past the statistics about the shortened life expectancy of diabetics have been, to say the least, depressing. But now there's more upbeat news. For instance, since 1970 the death rate for diabetes has declined about 21 percent. The decline appears to be due to a decrease in cardiovascular deaths among diabetics. (About 60 to 70 percent of diabetics die of cardiovascular disease.) The old estimate of life expectancy for diabetics was that, all things being equal, diabetes shortens a person's life by one third. Frankly, not only is this figure now outmoded by the above statistics, but we consider it far too drastic for an incontrol diabetic. But just for the sake of argument, let's accept it. What, then, does "all things being equal" mean? Our interpretation is that if you do not have diabetes and yet you live the way diabetics do you eat a perfectly balanced diet low in fats and sugar; you drink little or no alcohol; you ...