What is Heart and circulation problems in diabetes?

Heart and circulation problems in diabetes

What heart and circulation problems can you get with diabetes?

If you have diabetes, you have too much glucose in your blood. Glucose is a kind of sugar your body uses for energy. It can build up in your blood and make you sick. Normally, the amount of glucose in your blood is controlled by a hormone called insulin.

There are two main types of diabetes: type 1 and type 2.

If you have type 1 diabetes, your body doesn't make a

hormones
Hormones are chemicals that are made in certain parts of the body. They travel through the bloodstream and have an effect on other parts of the body. For example, the female sex hormone estrogen is made in a woman's ovaries. Estrogen has many different effects on a woman's body. It makes the breasts grow at puberty and helps control periods. It is also needed to get pregnant.

hormone called

insulin
Insulin is a hormone that helps your body use glucose, a type of sugar that gives you energy. Insulin keeps your levels of glucose steady. It also helps glucose get into your cells from your blood. People who have diabetes do not have enough insulin or do not react to insulin strongly enough. This leads to too much glucose in their blood.

insulin. You need to have regular shots of insulin to keep your blood sugar under control. To read more, see Type 1 diabetes.
If you have type 2 diabetes, your body may not make enough insulin, and the insulin it does make doesn't work well enough. You may be treated with a diet, pills, or insulin shots to keep your blood sugar under control. To read more, see Type 2 diabetes.

About 9 in 10 people with diabetes have type 2 diabetes.

Over time, too much glucose in your blood can damage the big blood vessels that carry blood around your body. This can lead to serious health problems such as a heart attack, a stroke, or poor circulation in your legs.

Too much glucose can also damage the small blood vessels in your eyes,

kidney
Your kidneys are organs that filter your blood to make urine. You have two of them, on either side of your abdominal cavity, toward your back.

kidneys, and nerves. These are called microvascular complications. But the information here is about how to prevent damage to the big blood vessels (macrovascular complications).

Heart attacks

You have a heart attack when blood can't get to your heart muscle. This happens when one of the vessels taking blood to your heart muscle suddenly gets blocked. If your heart muscle doesn't get the blood it needs, part of it dies. This means the heart may not be able to pump properly, to get blood and oxygen around the body.

Heart attacks are life-threatening and you need to get medical help quickly.

Strokes

A stroke happens when the blood supply to part of your brain is cut off. This can cause brain damage. Strokes affect people in different ways, depending on which part of your brain is damaged. If you have a stroke, you may not be able to move one side of your body, or you may have difficulty speaking or swallowing. It can take a long time to recover from a stroke, and some people don't recover fully. To read more, see our information on strokes.

Strokes are life-threatening and you need to get medical help quickly.

Circulation problems

Some people with diabetes have poor circulation in their arms and legs. Doctors call this peripheral vascular disease. If you have poor circulation, your legs may not get enough blood flow when you walk. This can be painful. Also, any cuts or broken skin on your feet or legs may take longer to heal up. They may turn into

ulcer
An ulcer is an open sore. Ulcers can happen in many parts of your body, such as in your stomach, and the skin of your legs, mouth or genitals.

ulcers. To read more, see our information on peripheral vascular disease.

Risk factors

Many people with diabetes have other kinds of health problems that also increase the chance of getting strokes, heart attacks, or circulation problems. These are called risk factors. Risk factors are things that make you more likely to get a health problem. Some of these risk factors are:

High cholesterol
High blood pressure
Being overweight or

obesity
If your body stores more energy than you need for daily functioning, this can make you overweight. The excess energy is stored in your fat cells. If your weight goes above a certain level, doctors call this obesity. Obesity is considered a medical condition. The excess weight can be a strain on your bones and joints. And if you are obese, you're more likely to get other diseases. Doctors have developed a scale for telling how much excess weight you have. This measure, called the body mass index (BMI), depends on your height.

obese, especially if you have a lot of fat around your waist
Getting too little exercise.

Source:
Hu FB, Stampfer MJ, Solomon C, et al.
Physical activity and risk for cardiovascular disease in diabetic women.
Annals of Internal Medicine. 2001; 134: 96-105.

¹

Source:
Wei M, Gibbons LW, Kampert JB, et al.
Low cardiorespiratory fitness and physical inactivity as predictors of mortality in men with type 2 diabetes.
Annals of Internal Medicine. 2000; 132: 605-611.

²

Your chance of getting heart and circulation problems is also higher if:

Source:
Krolewski AS, Warram JH, Freire MB.
Epidemiology of late diabetic complications: a basis for the development and evaluation of preventive programs.
Endocrinology and Metabolic Clinics of North America. 1996; 25: 217-242.

You have had diabetes as an adult for a long time
You have diabetes and the level of sugar in your blood is not well controlled
You have higher than usual levels of protein in your urine. This is a sign that your kidneys have been damaged, perhaps from high blood pressure.

Source:
Krolewski AS, Warram JH, Freire MB.
Epidemiology of late diabetic complications: a basis for the development and evaluation of preventive programs.
Endocrinology and Metabolic Clinics of North America. 1996; 25: 217-242.

³

Source:
Messent JW, Elliott TG, Hill RD, et al.
Prognostic significance of microalbuminuria in insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus: a twenty-three year follow-up study.
Kidney International. 1992; 41: 836-839.

⁴

Source:
Dinneen SF, Gerstein HC.
The association of microalbuminuria and mortality in non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus: a systematic overview of the literature.
Archives of Internal Medicine. 1997; 157: 1413-1418.

⁵

Source:
Gerstein HC, Mann JF, Yi Q, et al.
Albuminuria and risk of cardiovascular events, death and heart failure in diabetic and nondiabetic individuals.
Journal of the American Medical Association. 2001; 286: 421-426.

⁶

Sources for the information on this page:

Hu FB, Stampfer MJ, Solomon C, et al.Physical activity and risk for cardiovascular disease in diabetic women.Annals of Internal Medicine. 2001; 134: 96-105.

Wei M, Gibbons LW, Kampert JB, et al.Low cardiorespiratory fitness and physical inactivity as predictors of mortality in men with type 2 diabetes.Annals of Internal Medicine. 2000; 132: 605-611.

Krolewski AS, Warram JH, Freire MB.Epidemiology of late diabetic complications: a basis for the development and evaluation of preventive programs.Endocrinology and Metabolic Clinics of North America. 1996; 25: 217-242.

Messent JW, Elliott TG, Hill RD, et al.Prognostic significance of microalbuminuria in insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus: a twenty-three year follow-up study.Kidney International. 1992; 41: 836-839.

Dinneen SF, Gerstein HC.The association of microalbuminuria and mortality in non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus: a systematic overview of the literature.Archives of Internal Medicine. 1997; 157: 1413-1418.

Gerstein HC, Mann JF, Yi Q, et al.Albuminuria and risk of cardiovascular events, death and heart failure in diabetic and nondiabetic individuals.Journal of the American Medical Association. 2001; 286: 421-426.

This information was last updated on Dec 08, 2009

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