ARTERIOSCLEROSIS IN THE YOUNG DIABETIC PATIENT

Abstract

By the addition of insulin to the armamentarium for diabetic therapy, the span of life, relatively short heretofore, has been materially lengthened; consequently, a more exact knowledge of the effects produced by the long-continued presence of the disease is now obtainable. Perhaps the most significant consequence of this increased longevity in the diabetic patient has been to make more plainly evident the interesting sequence of arteriosclerosis on diabetes. Is this a phenomenon due simply to age, or are there signs of its approach in the young? In this paper is recorded evidence bearing on this point, obtained in studying the effects diabetes of five years' duration has on persons under 40 years of age. Arteriosclerosis is demonstrable in every patient with diabetes past middle life, according to Allen,¹and at any age, according to others, providing the disease has been present for ten years or longer. Autopsies on fifty-two of