ABSTRACT
In 1993 the American Diabetes Association (ADA) stated that antihypertensive treatment should be started in diabetes if blood pressure exceeded 140/90 mmHg, with the goal of reduction to less than 130/85 mmHg [1]. Exactly the same target values was proposed in the latest (sixth) edition of JNC (1997) and WHO/ISH (1999) and nearly the same (<130/80 mmHg) by the 2003 position paper from ADA and the 2003 version of the European society of hypertension [2-4]. The 1993 strategy for antihypertensive treatment in diabetic patients was based on 1) extrapolation from the very large intervention studies in nondiabetic patients 2) knowledge from epidemiological studies in (largely) type 2 diabetic patients but without evidence from prospective studies in type 2 diabetic patients. Between 1993 and 2003 a number of large important intervention studies in type 2 diabetes have been published.
