Diabetes Care Formatting Requirements: Complete Author Guide

Diabetes Care's structured abstract headings are unique and mandatory. They don't follow the standard Background/Methods/Results/Conclusions format.

The ADA headings are specific:

• OBJECTIVE (not "Purpose," "Aim," or "Background")

• RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS (not just "Methods")

• RESULTS

• CONCLUSIONS (not "Conclusion" singular)

Using the wrong headings will result in an administrative return. This is one of the most common formatting errors at Diabetes Care. The headings reflect the journal's emphasis on study design transparency. "Research Design and Methods" forces you to name your study design (randomized controlled trial, prospective cohort, etc.) explicitly.

The 250-word limit with these specific sections means you need to be disciplined. OBJECTIVE should be 1-2 sentences. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS should name the design, setting, sample size, and primary outcome in 2-3 sentences. RESULTS should include the primary endpoint with effect size and confidence interval. CONCLUSIONS should be 1-2 sentences with no speculation beyond the data.

Original Articles and Brief Reports also require Article Highlights immediately after the abstract. The current checklist asks for 3-4 complete-sentence bullets totaling fewer than 100 words. A separate graphical abstract is also required for original research and uploaded independently from the main document.

Diabetes Care enforces a combined limit of four tables and figures for Original Articles and Brief Reports. Four figures plus three tables is over the current limit.

Figure requirements:

Table requirements:

• Word table format (not images)

• Every column needs a header

• No shading or color

• Place each table after the references with its number, title, and legend

• Standard ADA abbreviations for diabetes-specific terms

• HbA1c values reported as both % and mmol/mol (dual reporting)

• Glucose values in mg/dL with mmol/L in parentheses (or vice versa, depending on primary audience)

Diabetes-specific figure standards:

• HbA1c trajectories should show mean with standard deviation or confidence intervals

• Time-in-range plots for CGM data should follow international consensus standards

• CONSORT flowcharts required for all randomized trials

• Forest plots should follow standard formatting conventions

The dual-reporting requirement for HbA1c and glucose values is critical and specific to ADA journals. You must report HbA1c in both % and mmol/mol. Glucose should be in mg/dL with mmol/L conversion (or the reverse if your primary audience is outside the United States). This applies to figures, tables, and text. Missing the dual reporting will trigger a revision request.

Diabetes Care uses the ADA reference style, which is a numbered Vancouver-based system.

In-text citations: Number references in order of appearance and cite them in parentheses, such as (1,2). Do not use superscript reference numbers, footnotes, or endnotes for citations.

Reference list format, worked example:

Correct ADA/Vancouver format:
Sandoval DA, Alonso LC, Gannon M, Sander M, Sussel L, Reusch JEB. Career advancement for women in diabetes-related research: developing and retaining female talent. Diabetes Care 2021;44:1744-1747

Wrong APA-style export:
Smith, A. B., Jones, C. D., & Brown, E. F. (2025). Effect of empagliflozin on cardiovascular outcomes in type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Care, 48, 1234-1242.

The difference is what trips auto-exported bibliographies: ADA uses author names without internal periods, puts the year directly after the journal abbreviation, and does not use a terminal period at the end of the reference.

Key formatting rules:

• List all authors by first initials and surname.
• Abbreviate journal titles using NLM standards.
• Provide inclusive page numbers.
• Keep references in numerical order matching their first appearance in the text.
• Limit Original Articles to 40 references and Brief Reports to 20.

The ADA style has subtle differences from standard Vancouver. If you use a reference manager, search for the dedicated "Diabetes Care" output style rather than a generic Vancouver or APA export.

Diabetes Care hosts supplementary material online through the ADA website.

Common supplementary content:

• Extended methods and statistical analysis plans
• Additional tables with subgroup analyses
• Sensitivity analyses and per-protocol results
• CGM data summaries and ambulatory glucose profiles
• Questionnaires and survey instruments
• Extended demographic and baseline characteristic tables

Formatting:

• Submit supplementary material as separate files through the submission system.
• Label the file as Online-Only Supplemental Material and cite it at least once in the main text.
• Expect supplementary material to undergo peer review without ADA production copyediting or proofreading.
• Explain the rationale for the supplemental files in the comments to the editor.

Diabetes Care has several requirements that set it apart from other diabetes and endocrinology journals.

1. ADA Standards of Care alignment. If your paper relates to a clinical practice topic, reference the relevant section of the ADA Standards of Care in Diabetes. This shows awareness of current practice standards and helps editors assess clinical relevance.

2. Dual reporting of glucose and HbA1c. All glucose and HbA1c values must be reported in both conventional and SI units. This applies to text, tables, and figures.

3. Person-first language. Use "people with diabetes" rather than "diabetics" and "person with obesity" rather than "obese person." This applies throughout the manuscript, including tables and figures.

4. Nomenclature for diabetes types. Use "type 1 diabetes" and "type 2 diabetes" in the title and abstract. Abbreviations such as T1D or T2D are acceptable in the body text after first use.

5. ADA conflict of interest policy. All authors must complete the ADA COI form. Relationships with pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers, and food industry sponsors receive close scrutiny.

6. Clinical trial data sharing. For clinical trials, the data sharing statement must describe what data will be available, to whom, and through what mechanism.

Diabetes Care enforces reporting-standard compliance.

The CGM consensus reporting standards are particularly relevant for Diabetes Care. If you report continuous glucose monitoring data, include time-in-range, time-below-range, coefficient of variation, and other standardized metrics defined by the international consensus.

Across our Diabetes Care pre-submission reviews, we use the May 1 publisher instructions and pre-submission checklist as the source of truth. In our audit of those two artifacts, we found four specific formatting failure patterns that generic clinical-journal templates can miss. The publisher states that incomplete submissions are returned for missing components, so these are package-level checks rather than guesses about peer-review outcomes.

A stale display-item cap survives in the manuscript plan. Older summaries often describe Diabetes Care as allowing four figures plus three tables. The current rule for an Original Article is four tables and figures combined, with 40 references. Brief Reports now use a 1,500-word main-text cap, a 150-word abstract, 20 references, and the same four-item combined display cap. Check the title-page counts against the live category before upload.

The main document is upload-ready but not editable. Diabetes Care asks for the main document in Word rather than PDF so the editorial office can verify the word count and production can convert the accepted paper. A compiled LaTeX PDF does not satisfy that instruction. The Word file should contain the title page, abstract, body, acknowledgments, references, tables, and figure legends in that order, while each figure is uploaded separately.

The reference manager applies a nearby style instead of the ADA rule. Diabetes Care citations are numbered in order and shown in parentheses, not as superscripts. The reference list includes all authors by first initials and surname, rather than shortening a long author group to the first three plus et al. We see this mismatch when an EndNote or Zotero library is switched to a generic Vancouver or AMA export without a line-by-line comparison to the publisher example.

Required companion artifacts are treated as optional extras. Original Articles and Brief Reports need Article Highlights and a separately uploaded graphical abstract. The package also needs the reporting checklist matched to the study design, such as CONSORT for randomized trials or STROBE for observational studies, plus the applicable trial registration, data-and-resource availability, guarantor, funding, author-contribution, and conflict-of-interest statements.

These patterns are testable without inventing an editorial standard: compare the article category, title-page counts, abstract headings, reference output, main-file type, tables, figure legends, and companion files against the current checklist. That audit catches contradictions before a technically complete manuscript becomes an incomplete submission package.

In practice: the most consequential formatting check is consistency across the whole package. The title-page count, abstract, main document, table placement, separate figure files, Article Highlights, graphical abstract, and reporting checklist should all reflect the same article category and the same current cap.

A Diabetes Care submission readiness check evaluates the manuscript structure and package against these formatting risks before you submit.