In a population-based cohort of diabetes patients, men and women had similar risks for all-cause mortality

Abstract Objectives To compare death rates of diabetic men and women relative to the general population and to identify sex-specific risk factors for all-cause mortality. Study Design and Settings In the current historical prospective cohort study, standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) were calculated for 19,657 men and women with diabetes in a large Israeli health care organization compared to the mortality in the general population from 1999 to 2003. In addition, sex-specific survival analyses were performed for men and women separately using baseline data obtained between 1995 and 1999. Results During the study follow-up (90,899 person-years), 2,924 deaths were identified. The SMR for diabetic women (1.40; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.33, 1.47) was significantly ( P Conclusions The study indicates that diabetes seems to eliminate the relative protection against death usually seen in women. It also suggests that most risk factors are comparable between the sexes, underlining the importance of similarly intensive disease management in diabetic women and in diabetic men.