Researchers say that diabetes, heart disease, and stroke may progress from one to another sequentially through the life course. That means there is a co-occurrence of two or three of these conditions.

In a 20-year long study, 13,714 middle-aged Australian women between the 45–50 years of age were recruited in 1996 and have been followed for 2 decades. Data on their health conditions--diabetes, heart disease, stroke as well as potential risk factors--was collected every three years until 2016.

Researchers say that stroke was associated with increased risk of progression to diabetes or heart disease. Researchers also found that social inequality, obesity, hypertension, physical inactivity, smoking, or having other chronic conditions were also associated with increased risk of multimorbidity. 

They found that women may experience two or more of diabetes, heart disease, and stroke as they age.