Tobacco and diabetes: clinical relevance and approach to smoking cessation in diabetic smokers.

Smoking is, together with diabetes mellitus, one of the main risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Diabetic patients have unique features and characteristics, some of which are not well known, that cause smoking to aggravate the effects of diabetes and impose difficulties in the smoking cessation process, for which a specificand more intensive approach with stricter controls is required. This review details all aspects with a known influence on the interaction between smoking and diabetes, both as regards the increased risk of macrovascular and microvascular complications of diabetes and the factors with an impact on the results of smoking cessation programs. The treatment guidelines for these smokers, including the algorithms and drug treatment patterns which have proved most useful based on scientific evidence, are also discussed.