Living with diabetes requires constant vigilance about blood sugar levels, medication timing, and dietary choices. But there’s another critical risk that often goes unnoticed: Diabetes can actually hide the warning signs of heart disease and heart attacks.
November is National Diabetes Awareness Month — the perfect time to focus on this dangerous connection. At Maryland Medical First P.A. in Parkville, Maryland, Narender Bharaj, MD, and our team want you to understand how diabetes affects your heart. Recognizing these hidden risks could save your life.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death among people with diabetes. In fact, adults with diabetes are twice as likely to die from heart disease or stroke compared to people without diabetes.
High blood sugar damages your blood vessels and the nerves that control your heart. The problem is that this damage happens gradually, without obvious warning signs. You might not notice anything wrong until you’re facing a serious cardiac event.
Diabetes causes multiple risk factors that work together to harm your cardiovascular system:
High blood sugar triggers persistent inflammation throughout your body, which damages the lining of your arteries and promotes plaque buildup.
Excess glucose in your bloodstream acts like sandpaper on your blood vessel walls, making them stiff and narrow.
Diabetes tends to throw your cholesterol out of balance. Your triglycerides often climb higher while your high-density lipoprotein (HDL) — the “good” cholesterol that removes plaque — drops lower. This creates the perfect environment for fatty deposits to build up in your arteries.
Many people with diabetes also develop hypertension (high blood pressure), which puts extra strain on their hearts and blood vessels.
One of the most dangerous complications of diabetes is nerve damage, or neuropathy. When this affects the nerves connected to your heart — called cardiac autonomic neuropathy — your body loses its ability to signal that something’s wrong.
During a typical heart attack, damaged heart tissue triggers pain signals that travel through nerves to your brain. You typically feel crushing chest pressure, pain radiating down your arm, or difficulty breathing.
But diabetic nerve damage can block these pain signals. You might have a heart attack and experience only mild discomfort, unusual fatigue, or no symptoms at all. Some people only discover they’ve had a heart attack during a routine electrocardiogram months or years later.
Beyond silent heart attacks, diabetes can mask other warning signs of developing heart disease:
You might attribute breathing difficulties to being out of shape or having high blood sugar, when it’s actually a sign of heart failure or reduced blood flow to your heart.
Exhaustion is common with diabetes, so you might not realize that worsening tiredness could signal that your heart isn’t pumping effectively.
Fluid retention in your legs and feet can result from either diabetes complications or heart failure — making it easy to miss the cardiac connection.
Blood sugar fluctuations can cause lightheadedness, as can an irregular heartbeat or reduced blood flow from blocked arteries.
You can’t change your diabetes diagnosis, but you can take steps to reduce your cardiovascular risk and catch problems early.
Don’t wait for symptoms to appear. Regular testing helps detect heart disease before it becomes life-threatening:
These screenings provide early detection when your body can't send reliable warning signals.
Maintaining stable blood glucose levels reduces the cumulative damage to your blood vessels and nerves. Work with Dr. Bharaj to find the right medication regimen and monitor your HbA1c levels regularly.
Heart disease prevention requires addressing multiple factors simultaneously:
Each of these factors directly impacts your cardiovascular health and works together with blood sugar control.
If you have diabetes, your heart needs closer monitoring than you might realize. Dr. Bharaj and our team can help you manage both your blood sugar and your cardiovascular health.
To schedule your evaluation or discuss your heart disease risk factors, call our office at 410-661-4670 or use our online booking tool.
