Having diabetes certainly makes a heart attack more likely — heart disease is the leading cause of death in people with diabetes. But that doesn't mean it's inevitable. There are steps you can take to help protect yourself from a heart attack, like staying active, cutting the amount of fat you eat, and controlling your weight. If you smoke, quitting is the most important thing you can do to keep your heart healthy. Making these changes is hard, so ask your family or friends to support you, whether it's helping you prepare a healthy, tasty meal or joining you for a walk.
Three out of four people with diabetes die from a heart disease or stroke. While experts don’t fully understand the causal relationship between diabetes and cardiovascular disease, it’s clear that diabetes — especially type 2 diabetes — is often accompanied by various heart disease risk factors, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high triglycerides, and obesity. Diabetes is also associated with an increased tendency for forming clots. Kidney disease, a complication of diabetes, also considerably boosts the risk for heart disease. And studies have demonstrated an association between the earliest stage of kidney disease (microalbuminuria) and heart disease.
It can take years for complications to appear, but when they do, they’re usually serious. Restricted blood flow to the heart may trigger the chest pain called angina. A critical lack of blood can also cause a heart attack, in which a portion of the heart muscle dies. When blood flow to the brain is blocked, a stroke can occur.
