Diabetes is a metabolic disorder, which is characterized by insulin deficiency, insulin resistance, and aberrant metabolism in glucose, protein, and lipid. Genetic and environmental factors are the primary causes for diabetes. It is a chronic progressive disease that leads to the development of microvascular and macrovascular complications. This disease afflicts around 5% of the world population by now. However, current oral antidiabetic agents used in orthodox medicine have unmet efficacy and undesirable side effects in patients. Research and development of new remedies for diabetes are in great demand. It is estimated that complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is used by 80% of the world population for their primary health care. Therefore, CAM represents one of pivotal options for the therapy for diabetes. Areas of interest in CAM for diabetes include herbal medicines, acupuncture, moxibustion, and other therapies.

We invite investigators to contribute original research articles and review articles focusing on basic research, translational research, and clinical studies in CAM for diabetes and its complications (e.g., retinopathy, neuropathy, nephropathy, and cardiovascular diseases). Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Understanding therapeutic potential (efficacy and safety) and mechanism of CAM for diabetes and its complications
• Development and clinical application of CAM, alone or in combination with orthodox medicine, to treat diabetes and its complications
• Advanced technologies (e.g., genomics, epigenomics, proteomics, metabolomics, next-generation sequencing, genome-wide association studies, etc.) and model systems for basic as well as translational studies of CAM for diabetes and its complications

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/submit/journals/ecam/camd14/ according to the following timetable: