Risk of early mortality and cardiovascular disease in type 1 diabetes: a comparison with type 2 diabetes, a nationwide study

Background Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are well-established risk factors for cardiovascular disease and early mortality. However, few studies have directly compared the hazards of cardiovascular outcomes and premature death among people with type 1 diabetes to those among people with type 2 diabetes and subjects without diabetes. Furthermore, information about the hazard of cardiovascular disease and early mortality among Asians with type 1 diabetes is sparse, although the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of Asians with type 1 diabetes are unlike those of Europeans. We estimated the hazard of myocardial infarction (MI), hospitalization for heart failure (HF), atrial fibrillation (AF), and mortality during follow-up in Korean adults with type 1 diabetes compared with those without diabetes and those with type 2 diabetes. Methods We used Korean National Health Insurance Service datasets of preventive health check-ups from 2009 to 2016 in this retrospective longitudinal study. The hazard ratios of MI, HF, AF, and mortality during follow-up were analyzed using the Cox regression analyses according to the presence and type of diabetes in >= 20-year-old individuals without baseline cardiovascular disease (N = 20,423,051). The presence and type of diabetes was determined based on the presence of type 1 or type 2 diabetes at baseline. Results During more than 93,300,000 person-years of follow-up, there were 116,649 MIs, 135,532 AF cases, 125,997 hospitalizations for HF, and 344,516 deaths. The fully-adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for incident MI, hospitalized HF, AF, and all-cause death within the mean follow-up of 4.6 years were higher in the type 1 diabetes group than the type 2 diabetes [HR (95% CI) 1.679 (1.490-1.893) for MI; 2.105 (1.901-2.330) for HF; 1.608 (1.411-1.833) for AF; 1.884 (1.762-2.013) for death] and non-diabetes groups [HR (95% CI) 2.411 (2.138-2.718) for MI; 3.024 (2.730-3.350) for HF; 1.748 (1.534-1.993) for AF; 2.874 (2.689-3.073) for death]. Conclusions In Korea, the presence of diabetes was associated with a higher hazard of cardiovascular disease and all-cause death. Specifically, people with type 1 diabetes had a higher hazard of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality compared to people with type 2 diabetes.