Preventing complications in diabetes mellitus: the role of the primary care physician

Abstract

Many Americans, knowingly or unknowingly, are afflicted with diabetes. Because of a lack of awareness or a disbelief that aggressive treatment benefits patients on the part of both patients and physicians, diabetes, particularly NIDDM, remains underdiagnosed and undertreated despite complications that can dramatically diminish quality of life. Increasing evidence that good glycemic control forestalls if not prevents these outcomes makes it the primary care physician's imperative to diagnose diabetes before complications develop. Physicians, through targeted screening and aggressive treatment of patients in whom they diagnose this chronic disease, can markedly reduce diabetes-related morbidity and mortality.