Diabetes is of primarily two types – Diabete mellitus (Type-I and Type II) and Diabetes insipidus.

What is type-1 diabetes?

Type-1 diabetes is sometimes called juvenile diabetes, or insulin-dependent diabetes. It means that your body can’t make insulin. Insulin helps your body turn the sugar from the food you eat into a source of energy. Type 1 occurs more frequently in children and young adults, but accounts for only 5-10% of the total diabetes cases nationwide.

What is type-2 diabetes?

Type-2 diabetes results when insulin production is defective and tissue resistance to insulin develops. For many persons with Type-2 diabetes, daily insulin supplementation is not required. Diabetes is managed by making moderate changes in diet and exercise. Of the nearly 16 million Americans with diabetes, 90-95% (14.9 million) have Type-2 diabetes. Of these, roughly a third are unaware they have the disease.

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease involving abnormalities in the body’s ability to use sugar. Diabetes is characterized by:

Elevated blood sugars for months to years.
Both hereditary and environmental factors leading to its development and progression.
A relative or absolute deficiency of effective circulating insulin. Insulin is a substance made by the pancreas which lowers blood sugar in conjunction with meals. Diabetes is characterized by either: (1) an inability of the pancreas to produce insulin (type 1 or insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus) or an inability of insulin to exert its normal physiological actions (type 2 or non-insulin dependent diabetes).
Often recognized in patients and their families by excessive urination, thirst, weight loss and/or a lack of energy. But diabetes is often silent and may exist for many years without the individual’s noticing it.
Effects certain “target tissues,” that is, tissues which are vulnerable to the damaging effects of chronically high blood sugar levels. These target tissues are the eye, the kidney, the nerves and the large blood vessels, such as in the heart.


A form of diabetes resulting from a deficiency of vasopressin (the pituitary hormone that regulates the kidneys); characterized by the chronic excretion of large amounts of pale dilute urine which results in dehydration and extreme thirst.