Diabetes Care Beyond Complication Control, Which Pursues a Life That Is Not Different from That of a Healthy Person

Abstract

　In Japan, elderly population aged 65 years or older, accounts for 29.1％ of the total population, which is the best aging rate in the world. Now, one in five citizens can suffer from diabetes or be suspected as diabetes. Thus, it is not too much to say that diabetes is a national disease. Moreover, aging of diabetes has been rapidly progressed since the patients with diabetes aged 60 years or older, account for 76％ of the total patients. The goal of diabetes care has been an inhibition of the onset and development of diabetic complications through a well-controlled status of hyperglycemia, hypertension and dyslipidemia in addition to the maintenance of ideal body weight and the compliance of smoke-free policy. A recent great advance in medical therapy and evidence regarding an inhibition of the cardio-vascular events and kidney protection have surely led diabetes care to the goal. We have to overcome the comorbidities such as sarcopenia and frail caused by aging, the stigma, social disadvantages and discrimination derived from diabetes to implement the ultimate goal of diabetes care to pursue a life expectancy and quality of daily life that are not different from those of a healthy person.