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achieving best practice It is estimated that 39 % of diabetic patients worldwide that use insulin therapy are prescribed premixed insu-lin formulations, largely because of the practical advantages of addressing both prandial and basal insulin needs with a single product. High-mix insulin analogues are a relatively little used therapy and this paper explores their role in the management of diabetes. There is a paucity of research on their clinical efficacy and safety with regards to hypoglycaemia and we conclude that in certain patients they can be helpful for difficult-to-control postprandial hyperglycaemia, but there are no long-term outcome studies to assess whether this has an impact on cardiovascular outcomes and the current gold standard of insulin ther-apy still remains a basal bolus regimen. Br J Diabetes Vasc Dis 2009;9:166–170 Key words: diabetes mellitus, high-mix insulin analogues, hypoglycaemia, postprandial glycaemia, premixed insulin