ABSTRACT
Diabetes mellitus has become one of the most common as well as complex of the chronic diseases that affect most races and generations. Twenty million individuals have diabetes, and an additional 26% of the U.S. population has an impaired fasting glucose, making this epidemic in proportions.1 On the basis of increases in morbidity, mortality, and cost, it poses a significant health burden, a fact that has been proven without doubt.2 The objective of the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988-1994 (NHANES III) was to examine the prevalence and time trends for diagnosed and undiagnosed diabetes according to age, sex, race, or ethnic groups in the U.S. population and show that the prevalence significantly increases with age, in addition to being higher among certain racial minority populations. The health care use, including office and inpatient visits, attributed to diabetes in an older population was also shown to be substantial.3,4 NHANES 1999-2000 proceeded to show that an inability to control risk factors, such as blood pressure and cholesterol, in conjunction with a rise in the prevalence of type 2 diabetes at an earlier age leads
to time-dependent vascular complications, which in turn increase as the population ages and the general life span increases. Further studies went on to demonstrate that although individuals with diabetes are at increased risk for vascular disease, including macrovascular (coronary artery disease (CAD) and stroke) and microvascular (retinopathy, neuropathy, and nephropathy), improved glycemic control definitely and positively impacts these complications.5,6
Approximately 20% of patients over 65 years of age suffer from diabetes.1
