Apr 09, 2002 (ABCNEWS.com) - Why should women, even young, seemingly healthy women, worry about diabetes?
Diabetes robs women of their fertility, interferes with their sex lives, threatens their eyesight, and boosts their risk of heart disease and stroke. And for the youngsters who believe diabetes is a concern of older age, consider this: cases among 30-somethings jumped by 76 percent over the last 10 years.
Though the disease has reached epidemic proportions among both sexes, diabetes is taking an increasingly harsh toll on women: more than 2.5 million American women are unknowingly affected by diabetes, while millions more have also undetected "pre-diabetes."
Women currently make up 60 percent of diabetics and the gender gap is expected to widen as the population ages and becomes more ethnically diverse. American Indian, Alaskan Native, African-American and Hispanic women are at much greater risk of diabetes than white women.
What's more, for unexplained reasons, diabetes runs a more severe course in women than in men. For example, women are at greater risk for diabetes-associated heart disease and blindness compared with men.
New Findings: Diabetes Disrupts Women's Sex Lives
A new study and accompanying editorial add sexual dysfunction to the growing list of sex-differences in diabetes and underscore the need for increased research into the unique effects of diabetes on women.
Belgium researchers recently conducted the largest study ever on the sex lives of women with diabetes and found that significantly more women with diabetes, 27 percent versus 15 percent of men, reported sexual dysfunction. The study and editorial were published in the April issue of Diabetes Care .
These problems were primarily a result of the psychological, rather than physiological, impact of diabetes. Women with sexual dysfunction tended to be frustrated with their diabetes treatment and were also more apt to be depressed.
In comparison, sexual dysfunction in men with diabetes is most often caused by nerve and blood vessel damage leading to erectile dysfunction. Until now, researchers assumed sexual dysfunction in diabetic women had the same origin.
Yet this new study shows that even in the early stages, diabetes can disrupt the sex lives of women. In fact, if women feel unhealthy, scared, or unattractive owing in part to their diabetes, sexual problems can surface immediately.
And, as noted by Dr. Lois Jovanovic, director of the Sansum Medical Research Institute in Santa Barbara, Calif., this study is only the 14th study in five years on sexual dysfunction in women with diabetes. In comparison, close to 2,000 parallel studies in men were published in the same time frame.
Matters of the Heart
Heart disease is the most dire and common health consequence of diabetes for both sexes. An estimated 45 percent of women with diabetes have heart disease compared with less than 39 percent of diabetic men.
What's more, once women develop heart disease they tend to have a poorer prognosis than men. After suffering a heart attack, women have a higher risk of dying or having a second heart attack than do men. In fact, every year heart disease kills 50,000 more American women than men.
Insufficient research has left experts without a clear understanding of why women with heart disease fare worse than their male counterparts. There are, however, some probable explanations. These include later diagnosis, less aggressive and delayed treatment in women and fundamental biological differences in the way men and women respond to heart disease.
Reproductive Ramifications
Women can also have unique reproductive repercussions of diabetes. Fertility problems such as miscarriage and polycystic ovarian syndrome are more common among women with diabetes. In addition, diabetes during pregnancy, known as gestational diabetes, occurs in approximately 5 percent of all pregnancies in the United States.
Gestational diabetes can cause high blood pressure, infections of the bladder, kidney and urinary tract, spontaneous abortion, premature delivery and birth defects, posing serious threats to both mother and child.
Diabetes Destroys Eyesight of More Women
Diabetes, the leading cause of blindness in the developed world, robs more women of their eyesight than men. Approximately 10 percent of women are blind because of diabetes compared with only 6 percent of men.
A recent report of the National Institutes of Health warns that more Americans than ever are facing the threat of blindness. As the Baby Boomer generation ages, the number of blind Americans is expected to double, and the gender disparity is also expected to increase. Women with diabetes should be sure to receive yearly eye exams.
Other Sex Differences in Diabetes
There are a slew of other ways in which diabetes disproportionately affects women. Diabetes-associated coma, stroke, nerve damage, urinary tract infections and hypertension have all been shown to occur more frequently among women.
Only further research aimed at elucidating these gender discrepancies will yield better methods of diabetes treatment and prevention for women.
Sophia Cariat is a health and science writer and frequent contributor to the Society for Women's Health Research.
