26th June 2023

Complications of diabetes

Diabetes accounts for almost 1 in 7 deaths in the UK, and whilst the majority of these are from cardiovascular complications, diabetes is the most common cause of chronic kidney disease in the UK and the developed world.

Chronic complications of diabetes are usually categorised as microvascular or macrovascular depending on the size of the blood vessel that they affect.

The macrovascular complications are:

• Coronary artery disease
• Cerebrovascular disease
• Peripheral vascular disease.

The microvascular complications are:

• Nephropathy – kidney disease
• Retinopathy – affecting the eyes, sometimes called maculopathy
• Neuropathy – affecting both the peripheral and central nervous system