The application of HOMA2-IR is reviewed. HOMA2-IR is a good basal insulin resistance index for the use in epidemiological studies.

Progress of diabetes researches in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), mainly the work on herb extracts or ingredients at cellular or molecular levels in recent years, was reviewed. The Chinese herbs investigated mostly are qi-invigorating drugs and heat-clearing and detoxifying drugs. It shows that TCM therapy bears positive effect on diabetes mellitus.

Diabetic patients are at increased risk of some cancers,mainly pancreatic cancer,liver cancer,colorectal cancer,breast cancer,endometrial cancer,etc.,and these cancers often result in higher mortalities than that in nondiabetics.The exact mechanism of this relationship is still unclear.The most suggested factor are hyperinsulinemia and insulin-like growth factors with their growth promoting and mitogenic effects.Recently,some insulin analogues are suspected to have these carcinogenic effects,but no firmly proven data are available yet.Metformin may have a protective effect in this regard.

Some issues in the evaluation of insulin resistance in experimental research were discussed.Except glucose clamp test, other methods used in animal experiments are not appropriate now.

Scientificity was emphasized in researches on diabetes mellitus in integrated traditional Chinese and western medicine abroad. In clinical researches, random and double-blind method, placebo control and auto-cross-over experiment were employed, and the diet, activity, drug dosage and body weight were under strict control, although such kind of researches was rare. During the past few decades, there were also some good achievements in the researches on diabetes mellitus in integrated traditional Chinese and western medicine in China, but most of the researches were duplicated work at low level. There existed some problems, such as the selection of investigated objects, control of the facts besides of the drugs, randomized grouping, blind method, auto-cross-over control, integrated research of multi-center, selection of indexes, methods of index detection, selection of complex prescription, single drug or monome, animal model, etc. The scientificity of the researches in China should be further improved.

[Summary] The population of the world is aging. This makes the endocrinologists recognize many aspects of hormones and diseases that are associated with the aging process, and developed a new endocrinology of aging. This has led to increasing attempts to explore the use of hormonal replacement as a modality to retard the aging process. Although at present, many are unsuccessful, especially in long term outcomes. Many questions are to be resolved in our country, as we are one of the largest countries in the world with high percentage of older population.

The progresses in the determination of blood glucose and glucose of other body fluids are reviewed, including methodologies of determining glucose in venous and capillary blood, and also in interstitial fluid, including non-invasive methods. The chracteristics and error of capillary blood glucose determination are discussed in detail.

The development of various insulin assay kits in recent years is reviewed. The quality of assay kits may determine the result of research work, and should be emphasized.

Carcinoma of the esophagus is the second most common cause of cancer-related-death in women,and fourth in men in China.The prevalence rate of adenocarcinoma of esophagus has increased in the western countries recently too.Unfortunately,the treatment result of esophageal cancer is very poor,and only 15%～20% of all esophageal cancer patients will be alive 5 years after diagnosis.With the development of radiologic techniques and molecular biology,the esophageal cancer patients are given on individualized treatment modality.This paper reviewed several interesting topics,including operation for esophageal cancer,new technologies for pre-operative staging,multidisciplinary treatment as well some data from the Shanghai Cancer Hospital.