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1 Diabetes mellitus: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is by far the most common metabolic disorder that is associated with significant morbidity and mortality, with an estimated world wide prevalence of between 1% and 5% (Skyler, 1996). Diabetes mellitus is the name given to a multiple group of disorders with different etiologies. It is characterized by derangements in carbohydrate, protein, and fat metabolisms caused by the complete or relative insufficiency of insulin secretion and/or insulin action. These aberrations account for the acute (fatigue, polyuria, polydipsia, etc.) as well as chronic (retinopathy, neuropathy, nephropathy, peripheral vascular disease, heart failure, etc.) complications of the disease (Rubin et al., 1994). Diabetes is the singlemost important metabolic disease, widely recognised as one o f the leading causes o f death and disability worldwide (Songer and Zimmet, 1995; Zimmet, 1999). The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated that there are 135 million diabetic individuals in the year 1995 and it has projected that this number would increase to 300 million by the year 2025 and it also declared that diabetes had reached epidemic proportions and predicts that most o f the increase will be contributed by developing countries, particularly India (King et al., 1998). India today leads the world with its largest number o f diabetic subjects in any given country. It has been estimated that presently 19.4 million individuals are affected by diabetes and these numbers are expected to increase to 57.2 million by the year 2025 (one sixth o f the world total) (King et al., 1998).
