Global burden of diabetes: action for anesthesia

Introduction The Lancet recently reported on the Global Burden of Disease 2010 (GBD) in a series of landmark epidemiological articles that discuss the causes of morbidity and mortality in people of both sexes, of all age groups, based on data from 187 countries. This seminal treatise has major significance for anesthesia, as it gives us a bird’s eye view of the comorbid conditions one can expect in critical care and anesthesia practice. The increasing prevalence of diabetes mellitus (DM) has significant impact on anesthesiology practice as it can directly and indirectly impact the outcome in surgical patients. A strong need is felt among endocrinologists and anesthesiologists to work in unison so as to manage the increasing number of surgical patients with DM. A universal consensus on therapeutic management strategies in surgical diabetic patients is mandatory between these two specialties to counter this ever‐increasing burden of DM. As such, a strong need is felt to highlight the impact of the DM epidemic in the practice of diabeto‐anesthesia [1]. This communication highlights the global burden of diabetes, as reported by GBD 2010, while emphasizing the surgical and medical aspects of the disease that may impact anesthesia care in times to come [2–4]. (http://www. healthmetricsandevaluation.org/gbd/visualizations/ gbd‐2010‐leading‐causes‐and‐risks‐region‐heat‐map? metric = YLL).