ABSTRACT
Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease that results in major morbidity and mortality. As with any chronic illness the goals of therapy are to alleviate the acute symptoms and complications and then focus on preventing the long-term consequences. While the initial goals can be reasonably achieved in most instances, the long-term complications can prove to be more of a challenge. This is in part due to the fact that the disease is not a single entity but a complex metabolic syndrome that results in hyperglycemia. This can be due to an absolute deficiency of insulin or either defects in insulin secretion and insulin action or a combination of both. Clinically, it is convenient to classify the patient as having either type 1 or type 2 diabetes mellitus. This approach is based more on the underlying pathophysiology than on treatment, since many patients with type 2 diabetes will eventually require insulin for treatment.
