Introduction: To evaluate carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT) and carotid injury and its progression with age in patients with diabetes in comparison with hypertensive patients and a control group. Methods: A cross sectional study was done between 2010 and 2014 on a population of 732 patients with age between 31 and 80 years, of which 314 (42.9%) with diabetes, 267 (36.6%) hypertensives and 151 (20.6%) representing the control group. Clinical, paraclinical data, carotid IMT and risk factors were analyzed. Results: cIMT correlated in diabetes positively with male gender (p <0.05), age (p = 0.006), HT (p = 0.001), triglycerides (p = <0.05) and inversely, with HDLc (p <0.05).The difference of cIMT between the control group and diabetes was 0.086 mm (CI 95%, 0.056- 0.134), between the control group an hypertensives 0.052 mm (95% CI, 0.021 -0.087) and between diabetics and hypertensives 0.041mm (95% CI, 0.011-0.073). After adjusting these differences for age, multiple linear regression analysis documented a cIMT year increase of 0.005 mm in diabetes, 0.006 mm in hypertensives and 0.0045 mm in the control group. The incidence of carotid damage was greater in diabetics (88 cases, 28%) than in hypertensives (45 cases, 16.8%) and in the control group (7 cases, 4.6%). Conclusions: Our study found a significant association between increased cIMT and diabetes. cIMT was greater in diabetes than in the control and hypertensive patients, but its annual increase was greater in hypertensives than in diabetes.