Introduction and objective:
People over 70 years of age have an especially high rate of morbidity through circulatory system diseases. One of the factors increasing cardiovasular risk (CV) is diabetes. Therefore, CV risk should be assessed to limit morbidity in older age and effectively reduce risk factors. The aim of the study is to assess the impact of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) on cardiovascular risk in people aged 70–89 years, based on the SCORE2-OP scale, taking into account other risk factors.

Material and methods:
The study was conducted among 514 people aged 70–89 with diabetes (T2DM(+); n=148) and without (T2DM(-); n=366). The appropriate SCORE2 – OP algorithm was used to assess CV risk. The created regression model indicated factors significantly affecting CV risk in this group of respondents.

Results:
The mean CV risk is significantly increased in the T2DM(+) group by 2.7% compared with the non-DM group – T2DM(-) (p=0.010). Intergroup analyses confirmed a significantly higher CV risk in single individuals (31.2±12.7) compared to married individuals (25.6±10.2), at the threshold of statistical significance. The model fit (0.91) indicated that age (1.0), smoking (1.0), systolic blood pressure (0.99), non-HDL cholesterol (0.65) and HR (0.52) increased CV risk.

Conclusions:
Non-modifiable risk factors such as age increase CV risk and their impact cannot be significantly reduced, but modifying factors such as non-HDL, HR, systolic blood pressure or smoking can significantly reduce CV risk.