If you have diabetes you are two to four times more likely to develop cardiovascular disease than people without diabetes. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of mortality for people with diabetes. If you have diabetes your risk of cardiovascular disease rises for a number of reasons. Hypertension, abnormal blood lipids and obesity, all risk factors in their own right for cardiovascular disease, occur more frequently in people with diabetes.

Uncontrolled diabetes causes damage to the blood vessels—they will be more prone to damage from conditions called atherosclerosis and hypertension. According to the World Heart Federation’s website: “People with diabetes develop atherosclerosis at a younger age and more severely than people without diabetes. Hypertension is more than twice as common in people with diabetes as in people with normal blood glucose levels. People with diabetes are more likely to have a heart attack or stroke, than people who do not, and their prognosis is worse...If you have diabetes you have a two- to three-fold greater risk of heart failure compared to people without diabetes.”

Because Diabetes can damage nerves as well as blood vessels, a heart attack can occur without the experience of chest pain. A person might not know that they had a heart attack.

Women who are premenopausal women and have diabetes have increased risk of heart disease because diabetes negates our natural estrogen’s beneficial affect on the heart.

Research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 2006 shows that the practice of the TM technique can help during the initial stages of type 2 diabetes by lowering insulin resistance. 

Further, stress hormones such as cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrenaline aggravate insulin and glucose levels. Reducing these neurohormones through the Transcendental Meditation technique helps to balance glucose and insulin in the blood. This helps to normalize diabetes.

Cardiologist Dr. Cesar Molina stated, “Because the TM technique significantly reduces stress and since diabetes can be worsened by both physiologic and psychological stress, it makes sense that the regular practice of Transcendental Meditation may improve the ability to control diabetes...The practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique for even a short period of time has been shown to be associated with decreased insulin resistance and a lowering of the blood sugar, thereby decreasing the risk factors of diabetes.”