Diabetics have a much greater morbidity and mortality due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) than nondiabetics. Furthermore, diabetic women have a 3.8-fold greater risk for CVD compared to diabetic men. Inflammation is now considered a risk factor for CVD and it has been demonstrated that inflammation also plays a role in diabetes. One component of inflammation that has reported to be increased in patients with diabetes only and CVD only are proinflammatory cytokines, particularly interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor (TNF-alpha), and interleukin-1 (IL-1beta). This study was performed to test the hypothesis that these proinflammatory cytokines were increased in women with CVD and further increased in diabetic women with CVD compared to nondiabetic women with CVD and healthy age-matched controls. We found that IL-6 was increased in diabetic women with CVD compared to healthy age-matched controls (1.41 = 0.48 to 0.33 +/- 0.06 pg/ml, P < .05). IL-6 was also increased in diabetic women without CVD compared to healthy age-matched controls, but not significantly (0.96 +/- 0.27 to 0.33 +/- 0.06 pg/ml). We found that TNF-alpha was increased in diabetic women with and without CVD compared to healthy age-matched controls, but not significantly (4.53 +/- 1.38 to 3.93 +/ -0.53 to 2.33 +/- 0.89 pg/ml). IL-1beta was not significantly different among any of the four groups of women. These results indicate that both IL-6 and TNF-alpha are chronically increased in diabetic women with and without CVD compared to nondiabetic women. The additive concentration of cytokines in diabetes and CVD suggests a common inflammatory state in both diabetes and CVD.