 Until now, efforts have been concentrated on individuals at risk for diabetes readily identifiable within the general population, typically subjects in the second half of adulthood, presenting abdominal obesity and mild abnormalities of blood sugar. Preventive lifestyle and dietary measures are proposed but are constrictive and difficult to maintain over time, and the results, although they may be significant, remain disappointing, with mere postponement of an outcome which at this stage appears inevitable. The reason is ascribable to excessively tardy intervention, when the pathogenic process has already been ongoing for some ten years and the endocrine function of the pancreas is probably already irreparably impaired. 