The aim of this study was to compare the predictive power of HbA1c, 2-hour glucose and fasting glucose for incident type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and CVD mortality during a 10-year follow-up. A total of 593 inhabitants from Northern Finland, born in 1935, were enrolled (245 men). During the mean follow-up of 9.7±0.7 years, incidence of type 2 diabetes was 17.1% (n=64). Moreover, 65.7% of the cases of newly diagnosed diabetes were predicted by a raise in ≥1 of the markers at baseline. The most common condition to precede diabetes was impaired glucose tolerance (40.6%), followed by elevated HbA1c (32.8%) and followed by impaired fasting glucose (21.9%). Total incidence of new CVD was 37.6% (34.3% in women and 42.7% in men). In women, HbA1c and 2-hour glucose were associated with incident CVD, but not in men. Among women with detected diabetes at screening, both HbA1c and 2-hour glucose were significant predictors of incident diagnosis of CVD. In nondiabetic women, 2-hour glucose was the only glycemic marker significantly associated with incident CVD. Thus, these results indicate that HbA1c can predict a 10-year risk of type 2 diabetes at a range of 5.7-6.4%, but for CVD, HbAIc can predict only among women in the higher range of ≥6.5%.
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