Editor’s Note, DCMS #225

According to researchers from the CDC in Atlanta, medical spending attributable to diabetes per person doubled between 1987 and 2011. "The economic burden of the disease on patients and our health care system has increased substantially," Xiaohui Zhuo, PhD, of the agency’s Division of Diabetes Translation, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, told Endocrine Today. "The trend is simply unsustainable if the number of diabetes patients continues to grow." Part of the problem comes from the younger age that patients are developing diabetes as well as the more heroic and expensive ways we are treating patients’ glucose levels and complications.

This means that treating the whole patient is very important and this week Dr. Stanley Schwartz delves into the importance of this in his Homerun Slides by discussing multiple therapies for both diabetes and cardiovascular treatment while in our Disaster Averted, Elaine Massaro, MS, RN, CDE, APN, shares why just focusing on one problem can really leave a patient in big trouble.

Our Clinical Text ties right into this as it is all about treating older patients with diabetes and points out how to maximize care without decreasing the quality of life, and our Mastery In Minutes video interview features information from one of the foremost researchers on how food and non-nutritional products affect the cells of diabetes patients.