[Smoking and diabetes mellitus].

Diabetic patients die mostly from chronic vascular complications, in particular ischaemic heart disease (specially type II diabetics) and renal failure associated with diabetic nephropathy (in particular type I diabetics). Smoking--one of the basic risk factors of atherosclerosis and its complications--accelerates in diabetics the atherosclerotic process and enhances the risk of cardiovascular complications. Smoking causes endothelial dysfunction, as well as deterioration of diabetic nephropathy and retinopathy. Smoking accelerates by various mechanisms the coagulation process and causes thus deterioration of the hypercoagulation state in diabetics. Anti-smoking intervention should be along with a diabetic diet the basic step in non-pharmacological treatment of diabetics.