WEDNESDAY, Aug. 19, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- People with type 1 diabetes who use insulin pumps seem to have a much lower risk of dying from heart disease or stroke prematurely than those who rely on multiple daily injections of insulin, new research suggests.

"As done in Sweden at the time of this study, insulin pump treatment almost halved cardiovascular mortality," said study author Dr. Isabelle Steineck, from Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark.

The researchers found a 45 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease early for insulin pump users. And the risk of dying early from heart disease or stroke was 42 percent lower for insulin pump users, while the risk of all-cause death was 27 percent lower during the seven-year study period.

Because this was only an observational study, the authors can't say for sure that insulin pumps lowered death risk during the study, although they did find a significant association between these factors.

The findings were published recently in the BMJ. No funding for the study was provided by insulin pump manufacturers, Steineck added.

Type 1 diabetes is a disease that causes the body's immune system to mistakenly attack the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Insulin is a hormone that helps the body convert sugar from foods into fuel. People with type 1 diabetes must replace that lost insulin to survive.

There are two basic ways to do this. One is multiple daily injections of insulin. The second option is an insulin pump. An insulin pump delivers insulin through a tiny tube that's inserted under the skin. The person with diabetes programs the pump to tell it how much insulin to deliver and when. Insulin pumps are not fully automated; they still require a lot of input from the person using the pump, the study authors explained.

Type 1 diabetes increases the risk of heart disease and stroke. The risk of dying from heart disease is twice as high for someone with type 1 diabetes compared to someone in the general population, the study authors said.