Black patients with type 2 diabetes experience more heart
attacks, strokes, and end-stage kidney disease, compared with
whites. Yet, blacks appear to have considerably lower rates of
clinical coronary artery disease, compared with whites,
according to study reported in Diabetologia (December 2005). The
study involved >1100 patients with type 2 diabetes participating
in a diabetes heart study. For the study, the researchers
investigated whether there were ethnic differences in the amount
of calcified plaque found in the coronary and carotid arteries.
The researchers determined that calcified plaque in the arteries
was significantly lower in blacks than whites. The black
participants, however, had a more negative risk factor profile
and dramatically thicker walls of the carotid artery.