Background and Purpose—Diabetes increases stroke risk, but whether diabetes status immediately before stroke improves prediction and whether duration is important are less clear. We hypothesized that diabetes duration independently predicts ischemic stroke.

Methods—Among 3298 stroke-free participants in the Northern Manhattan Study, baseline diabetes and age at diagnosis were determined. Incident diabetes was assessed annually (median, 9 years). Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% CI for incident ischemic stroke using baseline diabetes, diabetes as a time-dependent covariate, and duration of diabetes as a time-varying covariate; models were adjusted for demographic and cardiovascular risk factors.Read More