Managing diabetes and cardiovascular disease

Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) is a common macrovascular complication of all types of diabetes. It may present as cardiac disease – stable or unstable angina or myocardial infarction (MI), cerebral disease – ischaemic stroke or transient ischaemic attack (TIA), or peripheral vascular disease (PAD).

This article looks at the prevalence, pathology and clinical presentations of ASCVD and their management in people with diabetes. Approaches to both primary prevention – no previous history of ASCVD, and secondary prevention – established ASCVD, of cardiovascular (CV) events are discussed. Other conditions such as heart failure cardiomyopathy and cardiac arrhythmias that may arise secondarily to ASCVD are not covered in this article.