Glossary

Author: Glossary

  • Diabetes educator

    A health care professional who instructs patients with diabetes mellitus in the skills they need to manage their blood sugar levels safely and effectively and thus to avoid both the short- and long-term complications of the disease.  

  • Strict control of diabetes

    Regulation of blood sugars to normal or nearly normal levels, both before and after meals. Tight control of blood sugars has been shown to improve the survival of patients in intensive-care units and to prevent long-term complications of DM (e.g., blindness, nerve damage, and kidney failure).  

  • Secondary diabetes mellitus

    DM that results from damage to the pancreas (e.g., after frequent episodes of pancreatitis), or from drugs such as corticosteroids (which increase resistance to the effects of insulin).  

  • Renal diabetes

    Renal glycosuria, marked by a low renal threshold for glucose. Glucose tolerance is normal and diabetic symptoms are lacking.  

  • Phlorhizin diabetes

    Glycosuria caused by administration of phlorhizin.  

  • Pancreatic diabetes

    Diabetes associated with disease of the pancreas, such as chronic or recurrent pancreatitis.  

  • Mature-onset diabetes of youth

    Type 2 DM that presents during childhood or adolescence, typically as an autosomal dominant trait in which there is diminished but not absent insulin production by the pancreas. Children with this form of diabetes mellitus are not prone to diabetic ketoacidosis.  

  • Latent autoimmune diabetes in adults

    A form of type 1 diabetes usually diagnosed after 30 years of age, in which there are serum antibodies against insulin, pancreatic islet cells, or the protein products of those cells. Most patients affected by LADA eventually require insulin therapy, similar to patients with type 1 DM.  

  • Latent diabetes

    Diabetes mellitus that manifests itself during times of stress such as pregnancy, infectious disease, weight gain, or trauma. Previous to the stress, no clinical or laboratory findings of diabetes are present. There is a very strong chance that affected people will eventually develop overt type 2 diabetes mellitus.  

  • Iatrogenic diabetes

    Diabetes mellitus brought on by administration of drugs such as corticosteroids, certain diuretics, or birth control pills.