WHAT IS it about diabetes that leads to the non-healing ulcer or wound? U.S. vascular surgeon, Dr. Michael Weingarten says that one of the reasons is that diabetics get peripheral vascular disease (PVD) and they get a more aggressive PVD than non-diabetics. He was speaking last week at a conference transmitted here and in other countries via a website.
Peripheral vascular disease, sometimes called arteriosclerosis of the extremities is a disease of the blood vessels. The vessels supplying the legs and feet become narrow and harden causing a decrease in blood flow to those areas and this can in turn injure nerves and other tissues.
This condition, Dr. Weingarten said, is apparently four to six times more common in the younger age group of diabetics. Using the American population as the reference point, he also stated that cases of arteriosclerosis have been more common among males in the diabetic population.
In the African-American community, healthcare personnel are also seeing a high incidence of diabetes and more arterioosclerosis. He said that other factors may contribute to arteriosclerosis such as smoking and high blood pressure. These factors are linked to one of the major risk factors for diabetes, obesity.
"I am not sure which comes first if obesity may be the result of your type II diabetes or the cause of the diabetes," he said.
In the state of Pennsylvania, from which the conference was telecasted, Dr. Weingarten said that there are more deaths from diabetes, than AIDS, Alzheimers' and homicides put together.
