Extract

Over the course of the last two decades, increasing evidence has highlighted the adverse cardiovascular outcomes associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus and impaired glucose tolerance. The combination of hyperglycemia, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and inflammatory activation is likely to have a detrimental effect on the artery wall. It has been noted that individuals with type 2 diabetes without clinical evidence of atherosclerotic disease have a prospective risk of cardiovascular events comparable with survivors of myocardial infarction. Accordingly, diabetes is considered a coronary risk equivalent in prevention guidelines.

Despite the unequivocal clinical benefit of therapeutic strategies that lower blood pressure and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, there remains a substantial residual clinical risk. This finding suggests that there is an ongoing need to develop adjunctive approaches that result in more effective reduction of cardiovascular risk. A series of reviews are presented in this supplement that aim to highlight various aspects of the importance of type 2 diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance in promoting the global risk of cardiovascular disease and the metabolic targets of interest in the development of new therapies.

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