As knowledge about diabetes has increased, treatments have become more effective, but also more complex. For older people, this presents especially difficult challenges, which are often not taken into account by physicians. “This means that the treatment can sometimes do more harm than the disease”, says Medha Munshi, Director of the Geriatric Diabetes Clinic at Joslin Diabetes Center and a staff geriatrician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, both teaching and research affiliates of Harvard Medical School.