Delayed Diagnosis of Non‐insulin‐dependent Diabetes is Associated with Greater Metabolic and Clinical Abnormality

Abstract
Seventy‐seven per cent of 235 newly diagnosed and untreated patients with diabetes mellitus were polysymptomatic at their first visit to hospital. The larger the number of typical symptoms, the greater was the duration of the longest lasting one (pppppp<0.003), but was unrelated to ECG abnormality then or during the next 5 years.These findings accord with (but offer no proof of) the inherently plausible expectation that both morbidity and mortality would be lessened by earlier diagnosis of non‐insulin‐dependent diabetes mellitus.