Diabetes mellitus and acute myocardial infarction.

A series of 597 consecutive patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) have been screened for diabetes mellitus (DM). Six per cent of the series had DM, which is exactly the frequency of DM in an age-matched population. This finding corresponds with results of other investigators, indicating that treated diabetics do not have an increased risk of AMI. Diabetics suffering from AMI do not have an increased mortality, nor do patients treated with oral antidiabetics have a higher mortality than those treated with insulin.