الفهرس 
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Abstract
Type 2 diabetes continues to increase in prevalence, incidence, and as a leading cause of human suffering and deaths. Despite significant investments in clinical care, research, and public health interventions, there appears to be no sign of reduction in the rate of increase.
Certain regions of the world, such as Western Europe and island states in the Pacific, are experiencing a disproportionately high burden. This epidemic will require an urgent and unwavering commitment to aggressive solutions at national levels with public policies, public health funding, and economic incentives for local communities to start diabetes prevention programs.
Healthcare organizations and individual healthcare providers from multiple disciplines (doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dieticians, and diabetes educators) must be given time and resources to collaborate as they educate and care for individual and groups of patients. Unless urgent measures are instituted to reduce unhealthy eating, sedentary lifestyles, rapid urbanization, and other factors related to economic development, the burden of diabetes is expected to continue rising.
To effect meaningful change, improve health outcomes, and maximize cost-effectiveness, novel programs to engage patients with diabetes should seek to combine educational initiatives; support for lifestyle modifications, including smoking cessation; encouragement of exercise programs; nutritional counseling; health awareness reminders to promote foot and eye examinations; and regular HbA1c, lipid, and BP monitoring, together with financial incentives to support patients behaviorally and economically. These wide-ranging interdisciplinary cooperative initiatives may result in improved glycemic control and a reduced risk of the long-term complications of diabetes with their attendant effects on morbidity and mortality.
Diabetes will continue to represent a major and growing source of morbidity, mortality, and spiraling healthcare costs. Novel strategies to prevent diabetes, slow the transition from prediabetes to diabetes, and delay disease progression to forestall the development of complications are necessary to improve health outcomes for the increasing numbers of patients affected by these conditions as well as to control related healthcare expenditures.
It is clear that these efforts will need to be comprehensive and multidisciplinary, engaging patients, physicians, diabetes educators, nutritionists, care managers, and payers in complex cooperative endeavors.