According to the authors, for a long time, doctors have considered diabetes type 1 as a small vessel problem. Nevertheless, they had to worry much more about the factors that affected the great vessels, such as lipidic levels and arterial pressure.

In the survey, whose results were published in the 'Diabetes' journal, participated 901 people diagnosed between 1950 and 1980. The survey shows that the rates of premature death, renal insufficiency and nervous damage have diminished significantly. In fact, patients who were diagnosed with diabetes in the Fifties had five times more risk of death than those diagnosed in the seventies.

On the other side, no significant changes in the incidence of retinal damage and renal dysfunction were observed. In addition, the rates of ischemic cardiopathy also remained stable in these patients during the studied period.