Journal of Diabetes and its Complications

The primary purpose of Journal of Diabetes and its Complications is to act as a source of information, usable by those caring for patients with diabetes mellitus who are thereby at risk for development of those complications which all too often appear with time. While our primary aim is to assist the practitioner in his/her care of such patients, and to afford access to information that may allow the prevention of such complications, it is the Editors' wish to function as a forum for that information which, while still experimental, may shed light upon current thinking of those active in the fields appropriate to the aims of Journal of Diabetes and its Complications.

In addition to general articles on clinical aspects of diabetes mellitus, Journal of Diabetes and its Complications also presents articles on basic research in all areas of diabetes and its related syndromes. Topics covered relevant to the diabetic patient will include diagnosis, pathogenesis, and clinical management of the following: diabetic retinopathy, neuropathy and nephropathy; peripheral vascular disease and coronary heart disease; gastrointestinal disorders, renal failure and impotence; and hypertension and hyperlipidemia. Journal of Diabetes and its Complications will also publish papers on the general pathogenesis and prevention of diabetes.

Criteria for initial considerations for papers submitted will be originality, statistical probability of all data, and applicability to the aims of the Journal as a whole. Additional weight will be afforded to those submissions that are concise and comprehensible. All potentially acceptable manuscripts will be subjected to the process of peer review. To aid with the peer-review process, at least five suggested reviewers whose expertise falls within the scope of the submitted manuscript must be provided. For each suggested reviewer include full names, addresses (physical and email), phone and fax numbers.

Editor-in-Chief Vivian Fonseca MD
Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology
Tullis Tulane Alumni Chair in Diabetes
Chief, Section of Endocrinology
Tulane University Health Sciences Center
1430 Tulane Avenue - SL 53
New Orleans, LA 70112
USA

Manuscript Submission
Manuscripts should be submitted online at http://ees.elsevier.com/jdc and the instructions on the site should be followed closely. Authors may submit manuscripts and track their progress to final decision. Reviewers can download manuscripts and submit their reports to the Editors.

The Editorial Office can be emailed at: JDiabComplic@elsevier.com

Journal Principles
All manuscripts submitted to Journal of Diabetes and its Complications should report original research not previously published or being considered for publication elsewhere, make explicit any conflict of interest, identify sources of funding and generally be of a high ethical standard.

Submission of a manuscript to this journal gives the publisher the right to publish that paper if it is accepted. Manuscripts may be edited to improve clarity and expression. Submission of a paper to Journal of Diabetes and its Complications is understood to imply that it has not previously been published and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere.

Authorship
The Corresponding Author must submit a completed Author Consent Form with their manuscript. All authors must sign the Author Consent Form.

All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.

Acknowledgements
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship as defined above should be listed in an acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support. Authors should disclose whether they had any writing assistance and identify the entity that paid for this assistance.

Ethics
Work on human beings that is submitted to the journal should comply with the principles laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki "Recommendations guiding physicians in biomedical research involving human subjects", adopted by the 18th World Medical Assembly, Helsinki, Finland, June 1964 (and its successive amendments). The manuscript should contain a statement that the work has been approved by the appropriate ethical committees related to the institution(s) in which it was performed. Studies involving experiments with animals must state that their care was in accordance with institution guidelines.

Patients and Study Participants
Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent which should be documented in your paper.

Patients have a right to privacy. Therefore identifying information, including patient's photographs, pedigree, images, names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be included in the submissions unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and written informed consent has been obtained for publication in print and electronic form from the patient (or parent, guardian or next of kin). If such consent is made subject to any conditions, Elsevier must be made aware of all such conditions. Written consents must be provided to the journal on request.

Even where consent has been given, identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning and editors should so note.

Clinical Trials
All randomised controlled trials submitted to Journal of Diabetes and its Complications whose primary purpose is to affect clinical practice (phase 3 trials) must be registered in accordance with the principles outlined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE; http://www.icmje.org/). ICJME-approved registries currently include the following: 'ClinicalTrials.gov'; 'www.ISRCTN.org';' www.actr.org.au'; ' www.umin.ac.jp'; and 'www.trialregister.nl'. Please include the unique trial number and registry name on manuscript submission.

Conflict of Interest Statement
All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work, all within three years of beginning the work submitted. If there are no conflicts of interest, authors should state that there are none. This statement will be included in the published article.

Article Types
N.B. For reasons of available space, manuscripts that exceed the required word limits (below) will be declined automatically. All articles other than Editorials and Letters to the Editor are subject to full peer review.
1. Editorials are either written or commissioned by the Editors and should not exceed 1000 words (not including a maximum of 20 references; one small figure can be included).
2. Commentaries (1000 words not including a maximum of 20 references and one small figure) offer a stimulating, journalistic and accessible insight into issues of common interest. They are usually commissioned by the Editors but unsolicited articles will be considered. Debates comprise two commentaries of opposing or contrasting opinion written by two different groups of authors. Controversial opinions are welcomed as long as they are set in the context of the generally accepted view.
3. Original Research Articles should be a maximum of 5000 words. The word limit includes a combined total of five figures or tables with legends, but does not include up to 50 references and an abstract of up to 200 words structured according to Aims, Methods, Results, Conclusions and Keywords. Divide the manuscript into the following sections: Title Page; Structured Abstract; Introduction; Subjects, Materials and Methods; Results; Discussion; Acknowledgements; References; figures and tables with legends.
4. Brief Reports should not exceed 1000 words, including a summary of no more than 50 words (but not including up to 20 references) and may be a preliminary report of work completed, a final report or an observation not requiring a lengthy write-up.
5. Review articles should be a maximum of 5000 words, including a summary of no more than 200 words (not including up to 75 references) with subheadings in the text to highlight the content of different sections. The world limit includes a combined total of five figures or tables with legends. Reviews are generally commissioned by the Editors but unsolicited articles will be considered.
6. Letters to the Editor should be no more than 400 words.

Brief Reports and Letters to the Editor will only be published electronically but will be listed in the print Table of Contents. These articles can be cited by Digital Object Identifier (DOI) rather than page number.

Manuscript Style and Format
Headlines and subheadlines should be employed liberally in the Methods, Results, and Discussion sections. Use short paragraphs whenever possible. Clarity of expression, good syntax and the avoidance of jargon is appreciated by the editors and readers. Abbreviations should be explained in the text.

The Title Page should include authors' names, highest earned degrees, academic addresses, address for correspondence, and grant support. Authorship should be assumed only by those workers who have contributed materially to the work and its report. Colleagues who have otherwise assisted or collaborated should be recognized in the Acknowledgment section, as should sources of funding. The title should be informative and concise. Avoid use of extraneous words such as "study," "investigation," etc. If data from the manuscript have been presented at a meeting, list the full name, date and location of the meeting and reference any previously published abstracts in the bibliography.

The Abstract, of no more than 200 words, should be written with particular care. In the first sentence state what has been done. Special technical features of the methods should then be noted. The results should be summarized, and the most important data and supporting statistical correlations should be included. In the final sentence, the authors should emphasize the importance they attach to their observations. Key Words should be provided in the manuscript; normally 3-5 should be included.

The Introduction should be brief and set out the purposes for which the study has been performed.

The Materials and Methods should be sufficiently detailed so that readers and reviewers can understand precisely what has been done without studying the references directly. The description may be abbreviated when well-accepted techniques are used.

The Results should be presented precisely and concisely. Keep discussion of their importance to a minimum in this section of the manuscript.

The Discussion should relate directly to the study being reported with clear conclusions plus a perspective on possible future research. Do not include a general review of the topic.

References should be cited in the text by name(s) of author(s), followed by year of publication in parentheses. The reference list should be typed alphabetically according to the following style. If there are more than seven authors, the first six should be listed, followed by et al. 'Articles in press' can be included in the reference list but submitted work under consideration at a publisher must be cited in the main text as 'Author X, unpublished data'. Draft analyses can be referred to in the main text as 'Author X, personal communication'.

Journal Reference Example:
Abraira, C., Duckworth, W., McCarren, M., Emanuele, N., Arca, D., Reda, D., et al. (2003). Design of the cooperative study on glycemic control and complications in diabetes mellitus type 2: Veterans Affairs Diabetes Trial. Journal of Diabetes and Its Complications, 17, 314-322.

Book Reference Example:
1. Drury, P., Gatling, W (2005). Diabetes: Your Questions Answered. Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh.

Figures must be suitable for high-quality reproduction. Lettering should be complete, of professional quality, and of a size appropriate to that of the illustration or drawing, with the necessary reduction in size taken into account. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures, Elsevier will ensure that these figures appear free-of-charge in color in the electronic version of your accepted article, regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version. Color illustrations can only be included in print if the additional cost of reproduction is contributed by the author: you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please go to http://ees.elsevier.com/jdc and click on the Artwork Guidelines.

Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier web products, including ScienceDirect ( http://www.sciencedirect.com). In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please ensure that data is provided in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file.

Tables should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals, and contain only horizontal lines. Provide a short descriptive heading and explanation above each table with footnotes underneath.

The Language of the journal is English. Upon request, Elsevier will direct authors to an agent who can check and improve the English of their paper (before submission). Please contact authorsupport@elsevier.com for further information.

Publisher Services
Proofs will be sent to the authors for careful checking. Changes or additions to the edited manuscript cannot be allowed at this stage. Corrected proofs should be returned to the publisher within stated deadlines.

Elsevier will do everything possible to get your article corrected and published as quickly and accurately as possible. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication. Subsequent corrections will not be possible, so please ensure your first sending is complete.

Fast-track Publication. The journal aims for prompt publication of all accepted papers. Submissions containing new and particularly important data may be fast-tracked for peer review and publication; this is a limited facility and is strictly at the discretion of Editors.

Page Charges will not be made.

Offprints/Reprints. The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use. Paper offprints can be ordered by the authors. An order form with prices will be sent to the corresponding author.

Special Subject Repositories
Certain repositories such as PubMed Central ('PMC') are authorized under special arrangement with Elsevier to process and post certain articles. The following agreements have been established for authors whose articles have been accepted for publication in an Elsevier journal and whose underlying research is supported by one of the following funding bodies:
• National Institutes of Health: Elsevier will send a version of the author's accepted manuscript that includes author revisions following peer-review for public access posting 12 months after final publication. Because the NIH 'Public Access' policy is voluntary, authors may elect not to deposit such articles in PMC. If you wish to 'opt out' and not deposit to PMC, you may indicate this by sending an e-mail to NIHauthorrequest@elsevier.com. More information regarding the agreement between Elsevier and the National Institutes of Health can be found at http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorshome.authors/nihauthorrequest
• The Wellcome Trust: Elsevier will send to PMC the version of the author's manuscript that reflects all author-agreed changes including those made post peer review, for public access posting immediately after final publication. Authors are required to initially subsidize their manuscript with fees reimbursed by the Wellcome Trust. Wellcome Trust authors, whose manuscripts are subsidised, will have the corresponding articles made free to non-subscribers on ScienceDirect http://www.sciencedirect.com and Elsevier's electronic publishing platforms. More information regarding the agreement between Elsevier and The Wellcome Trust can be found at http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorshome.authors/wellcometrustauthors

Further information for authors can be found at http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorshome.authors