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Abstract
People with diabetes are more likely to be hospitalized and to have longer durations of hospital stay than those without diabetes. A recent survey estimated that 22% of all hospital inpatient days were incurred by people with diabetes and that hospital inpatient care accounted for half of the $174 billion total US medical expenditures for this disease. These findings are due, in part, to the continued expansion of the worldwide epidemic of type 2 diabetes. In the United States alone, there are approximately 1.6 million new cases of diabetes each year, with an overall prevalence of 23.6 million people. An additional 57 million American adults are at high risk for type 2 diabetes. Although the costs of illness-related stress hyperglycemia are not known, they are likely to be considerable in light of the poor prognosis of such patients. There is substantial observational evidence linking hyperglycemia in hospitalized patients to poor outcomes.