Goto A, et al. - In this retrospective cohort study involving 6,140 subjects (average age: 58.1 years), researchers estimated the exact causes of death, mortality rate, and life expectancy of diabetes patients via analyzing death records in a diabetes specialist clinic in Japan. Over the total follow-up period of 24,079 total person-years, 261 deaths were recorded. Cancer, heart disease, and cerebrovascular diseases were the major causes of death. The life expectancy at 40 years was 39.2 in men and 43.6 in women, the values of which were determined using a life table prepared from the mortality rates estimated with the exponential distribution model. While the outcomes need to be interpreted with caution, noted the authors, compared to diabetes populations surveyed by the Japan Diabetes Society during similar periods, the diabetic population of this study had similar rankings of causes of death.