British Journal of Anaesthesia, 2003, Vol. 90, No. 4 430-433
© 2003 The Board of Management and Trustees of the British Journal of Anaesthesia
Editorial III
Hyperglycaemia and the lung
1 Department of Anaesthetics and Intensive Care, St George’s Hospital Medical School, Cranmer Terrace, London SW17 0RE, UK 2 Department of Physiological Medicine, St George’s Hospital Medical School, Cranmer Terrace, London SW17 0RE, UK, *Corresponding author. E-mail: bphilips@sghms.ac.uk
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The prevalence of diabetes is increasing.1 Over 150 million people world-wide have diabetes mellitus and this is expected to increase to 220 million by the year 2010.2 An additional 200 million have impaired glucose tolerance, and 40% of these individuals will progress to diabetes over 5–10 yr. The figures are based on the latest definitions of diabetes and glucose intolerance by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the American Diabetes Association (ADA). The diagnosis of diabetes now depends on either a fasting plasma glucose 
7 mmol litre–1, or the symptoms of diabetes plus a casual plasma glucose 11.1 mmol litre–1. In addition, the WHO definition of diabetes includes people with a 2 h plasma glucose 11.1 mmol litre–1 during a standard 75 g oral glucose tolerance test. Impaired fasting glucose is defined as a fasting plasma glucose 6.1 mmol litre–1, and an impaired glucose tolerance as a