Guidelines for the management of type 2 diabetes: is ADA and EASD consensus more clinically relevant than the IDF recommendations?

Recently, American Diabetes Association (ADA) and European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) as well as International Diabetes Federation (IDF) have all issued their recommendations on the management of type 2 diabetes. Despite the same objectives, these guidelines are substantially different in terms of target values of glucose control, strategies for drug choice etc. ADA/EASD guidelines offer practical algorithm to help initiate and modify pharmacological therapy for diabetes, with detailed descriptions of treatment options. IDF document, however, concentrates on the role of postprandial hyperglycemia and calls for lower HbA1c target value of 6.5% as opposed to ADA/EASD guidelines advocating value of 7%. Careful analysis of the guidelines contents suggests that ADA/EASD consensus might be more useful in everyday clinical practice than IDF recommendations, which do not offer a particular treatment algorithm.