Abstract
In 1, 843 diabetic patients who died between 1968 and 1970 in Japan, the causes of death were studied regarding their relationship to certain conditions of the diabetic patients, severity of the diabetes, its duration and methods of treatment. In the mild diabetes group, the main causes of death were cerebrovascular disease (CD), malignant neoplasms (MN), diabetic nephropathy (DN) and ischemic heart disease (IHD), in decreasing frequency. On the other hand, in the severe diabetes group DN, CD, MN and diabetic coma (DC) were the first to fourth most frequent causes of death, respectively. In each group, frequency rates of DN and IHD as death causes showed a tendency to increase with the duration of the diabetes.
Particularly in the severe diabetes group, DC, DN, IHD and liver cirrhosis caused more mortalities than among the general population of Japan. The incidence of IHD causing death was higher in the tablet-treated group than in the insulin-treated group. However, the incidence of DN causing death was much higher in the latter than in the former group.
