Type 1 diabetes and cardiovascular risk factors in children and adolescents

The long-term cardiovascular consequences of type 1 diabetes determine the life expectancy of affected children and adolescents. Risk factors for their development are a longer duration of diabetes or diabetes onset at an early age, hypertension, smoking, high BMI, and dyslipidemia. The management of cardiovascular risk factors in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes includes screening measures for early detection of pathological changes on the one hand and lifestyle adjustment in terms of a balanced, normocaloric diet, regular exercise and, if necessary, lipid- or blood pressure-lowering therapy on the other hand. The guidelines and recommendations for standardized detection and treatment of cardiovascular risk factors in young people with type 1 diabetes have so far been formulated inconsistently and are therefore not always applied or implemented in clinical practice. This results in a relevant undertreatment of this patient group. This must be counteracted with more research approaches and the development of a universal procedure for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular risk factors.