 Diabetes mellitus, considered at the beginning as a metabolic disorder, mutates into a predominantly vascular disease, once its duration extends over several years orand when additional cardiovascular risk factors coexist, in particular arterial hypertension. In accordance, patients with type 2 diabetes die because of microvascular and macrovascular complications, and only rarely because of hypoglycaemic or hyperglycaemic shock syndromes 1. As a consequence, treatment of type 2 diabetes should focus not only on metabolic control but also on improving the global vascular risk. Analyses that have compared the importance of the various cardiovascular risk factors concluded that reductions of blood pressure and lipid levels are significantly more important than reduction of hyperglycemia 2. Of course, a multidisciplinary approach is desirable and the STENO-2 study has clearly indicated that in mid-term microvascular complications and in long-term macrovascular complications can be prevented in type 2 diabetes 3. 