Alcohol-related Deaths Up in Type 1 Diabetes

Survival rates in patients with early-onset type 1 diabetes have improved in recent years, whereas survival in patients with late-onset type 1 diabetes has become worse since the 1980s. The trend appears to be a result of increases in drug- and alcohol-related deaths in patients with late-onset type 1 diabetes. Researchers also found that alcohol and drugs were common causes of mortality, especially in the late-onset cohort. The late-onset cohort also experienced an increase from 6.0 deaths per 10,000 person years in patients diagnosed between 1970 and 1974 to 15.5 deaths in patients with late-onset diabetes diagnosed between 1985 and 1989. Of those deaths, 39% were attributable to drugs or alcohol. The findings highlight “the importance of permanent and long lasting patient-doctor-nurse relationships, close supervision, and guidance on the short term and long term effects of alcohol in young people with type 1 diabetes, especially in our alcohol permissive cultures,” the authors write. Published online in the BMJ Sept. 8, 2011