Social and economic issues will leave many older women with diabetes living alone and poor. Poverty is also a major concern for women of childbearing age who have diabetes. Women with diabetes have a lower life expectancy than women without diabetes. The risk of heart disease, the most common complication of diabetes, is more serious among women than men. Among people with diabetes who have had a heart attack, women have lower survival rates and a poorer quality of life then men.
Women are at greater risk from blindness due to diabetes than men.
All parts of society public and private are more effective when they work together long-term to address the public health issues of reducing the burden of diabetes among women. Most adolescents aged 10-17 years with diabetes have type 1, an autoimmune form of the disease in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin. Without insulin, fat and sugar remain in the blood and eventually can damage vital organs. Physiological and psychological changes in puberty make diabetes management and control more difficult. If not treated, both can lead to coma and death.