Hypothesis: Vascular complications of type 1 diabetes are thought to cluster. We examined the prevalence and incidence of vascular complications and American Diabetes Association's ABC goal achievements in a prospective cohort of adults with type 1 diabetes. We hypothesized that ABC achievement at baseline would predict both micro- and macrovascular complications over 6-years.
Methods: Participants (N=652) were 19-56 year old at baseline and re-examined 6-years later. Microvascular complications included diabetic nephropathy (DN), defined as incident albuminuria (AER≥20 μg/min) or rapid GFR decline (>3.3%/year) by CKD-EPI cystatin C and proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR), defined as laser eye-therapy. Macrovascular complications were defined as coronary artery calcium progression (CACp), measured by electron-beam computed-tomography. ABC goals were defined as HbA1c<7.0%, BP<130/80 mmHg and LDL-C<100mg/dL.
Results: ABC control was suboptimal with only 6% meeting all goals. Meeting no ABC goals at baseline compared to meeting all goals was associated with increased odds of developing microvascular complications (OR: 8.5, 2.3-31.5, p=0.001), but did not reach significance for CACp (OR: 1.7, 0.8-3.9, p=0.19).
Conclusion: ABC achievement at baseline strongly predicted microvascular but not macrovascular complications over 6-years in adults with type 1 diabetes, suggesting a need for novel therapeutic targets to complement conventional risk factors in treating macrovascular complications.
Keywords: Blood pressure; HbA1c; LDL-cholesterol; Macrovascular complications; Microvascular complications; Type 1 diabetes.
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