The cognoscenti, the small cadre of experts on diabetes in the elderly, will skip this foreword and dive right into the individual chapters. There they will find many treasures related to clinical science and clinical care, as well as historical vignettes and current controversies related to diabetes in the older patient. You, by reading this foreword in a book on diabetes in the elderly patient, are marking yourselves as non-expert but you are clearly ahead of your medical colleagues. You are recognizing that the excellent textbooks on diabetes and excellent textbooks on geriatric medicine, though they cover medical care of the older patient, typically fall short in dealing with the older patient with diabetes.