Women with diabetes are at 44% higher risk of being affected by coronary heart disease than men with diabetes, a new systematic review has revealed. The research was led by Professor Rachel Huxley, School of Population Health, University of Queensland, Australia. The data used in the study stretches back almost 50 years, from 1966 to 2011, and includes 64 studies, 858,507 people and 28,203 incident CHD events. Women with diabetes were almost 3 times more likely to develop CHD (actual relative risk 2.82) compared with women without diabetes, while men with diabetes were only twice as likely (actual relative risk 2.16) to develop CHD than men without diabetes. Combining the two sets of data showed that women with diabetes were 44% more likely to develop CHD than men with diabetes even after consideration was made for sex differences in other CHD factors. They say: "Taken together, these data provide convincing evidence that diabetes poses a greater relative risk for cardiovascular diseases in women than in men.

"Several possible reasons for the difference are discussed by the authors. Women have, particularly in the past, been under treated for risk factors for cardiovascular disease (evident in studies from 1985 and before). However, even in more contemporary populations, when diabetes is treated similar to men, women have generally been less likely to achieve treatment targets.

They conclude: "Women with diabetes have a 44% greater risk of incident CHD compared with men with diabetes. Sex disparities in pharmacotherapy are unlikely to explain much of the excess risk in women. Further studies are warranted to determine the actual mechanisms responsible for the difference in diabetes-related coronary risk between the sexes."