New Modes of Insulin Administration: Do They Have a Role in Clinical Diabetes?

Excerpt

The availability of insulin in the 1920s dramatically changed the treatment of diabetes mellitus. Life was prolonged for patients and their well-being was at least temporarily restored. Unfortunately, subsequent progress has been slow. Our ability to alter the appearance and progression of the chronic microvascular and macrovascular complications of diabetes has changed little, if any, over the last 50 years. Physicians and patients have long hoped that the chronic complications of diabetes could be averted if blood glucose concentrations could be maintained in the nondiabetic range. Until recently, testing this "glucose hypothesis" was virtually impossible, because maintenance of euglycemia in