Cardiovascular complications represent the major cause of mortality in patients with Type 2 diabetes. Despite effective treatment of established cardiovascular (CV) risk factors, there remains some unexplained CV risk.
Considerable evidence suggests that insulin resistance contributes to this unexplained CV risk. This review summarizes the roles of insulin resistance in the development of atherosclerotic CV disease and the impact of various treatment options.
Apart from non-pharmacologic approaches there is the need of complex pharmacologic intervention of main risk factors together with addition of pioglitazone, the most effective antidiabetic drug in reduction of insulin resistance.