Connecting the D.O.Ts

Excerpt

Diabetes, Obesity and bone Trabeculae. Three entities with often unrecognized, or forgotten, connections. Nearly every article about diabetes nowadays mentions its staggering prevalence and impact on public health and cost. Similarly, obesity has been described as an ‘epidemic’, a rampant, widespread occurrence that is actually more akin to a pandemic with far-reaching impacts on human health. Such is the concern that some forecasts for life expectancy have projected shorter lifespans for today’s children compared to their parents. With aging comes osteoporosis, a condition affecting so many individuals above the age of 50 that not being affected by this condition is slowly becoming the exception rather than the rule. The NIH 2014 actual budget expenditure for these three entities combined was 2 billion dollars, with minimal increases projected going into 2016. While most agree that diabetes and obesity share some level of common pathophysiology, especially when considering type 2 DM, the articles in this issue ambitiously set to explore the different ways the three disease entities, diabetes, obesity and osteoporosis, are interrelated. …