Diabetes: a special issue
Merri Pendergrass
This article has no abstract so we have provided the first paragraph of the full text.
When I first became interested in diabetes, clinical diabetes was commonly considered to be a bore. The most challenging decision a clinician faced seemed to be whether or not to switch a patient from a sulfonylurea to insulin. Around 1990, the pace of diabetes research started to pick up, and has increased steadily since then. The epidemic of diabetes is now widely recognized. Landmark trials have demonstrated that type 2 diabetes is potentially preventable with medications, as well as lifestyle modification. Clinical trials have also shown that once diabetes has developed, good glycemic, blood pressure, and lipid control will reduce complications. Multiple new classes of medications for diabetes treatment have become available, and additional classes will probably become available soon. In addition to medical therapies, our understanding of the role of bariatric surgery has increased and improvements have been made in pancreas and islet cell transplantation. Insulin delivery systems and devices that monitor blood glucose are constantly being improved. Looking towards the future, research with stem cells and xenotransplantation evokes the dream that curative therapy eventually might become available for many patients with diabetes.
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