Preface

Diabetes is anything but a simple disease. In addition to having the potential to affect every organ and every system of the body, it influences every day of a person’s life, every single thing one does. And it never goes away.

Diabetes affects more than 10% of the U.S. population, and close to 1.5 million people in this country live with type 1 diabetes, many of whom enjoy otherwise healthy and productive lives while managing their diabetes.

Advances in technology and the application of this technology to healthcare in general, and diabetes in particular, have added tremendous benefits to patients with diabetes, but not without a trade-off: The complexity and cost of diabetes technology quickly became factual and undeniable obstacles in its widespread utilization.

Despite the newly added complexity, diabetes technology is improving diabetes management: so much so that many patients and their healthcare providers can no longer imagine life without it.

Yet, only a fraction of patients with diabetes use diabetes technology to its full capacity. Putting the cost of diabetes technology aside (which is, unfortunately, impossible to do in real life), we still have to deal with the fact that most physicians simply lack the knowledge of this critical aspect of contemporary diabetes management to guide their patients through the complexity of these new devices and apps.

Patients, too, must be educated about what is available on the market today to help them manage their disease and advised about how to use rapidly improving technology for the daily self-management of diabetes.

Notwithstanding this difficulty, the editors and contributors to this volume realize that the future of diabetes technology is even more interesting and exciting than what is unfolding today. This technology will continue to transform the lives of patients with diabetes until the inevitable day when diabetes is cured.

We hope that our book, which may well be somewhat obsolete at the time of publication, offers practical guidelines to today’s diabetes technology for healthcare providers. We present real-life cases to illustrate how the use of diabetes technology has helped patients control their disease under a variety of circumstances. Finally, leading diabetes specialists, who themselves live with type 1 diabetes, share their personal and inspiring life stories, including their experiences with, and thoughts about, the benefits of diabetes technology.

Boris Draznin, MD, PhD

Steven Edelman, MD

Irl B. Hirsch, MD

David C. Klonoff, MD