What is Diabetes?

The name diabetes comes from a greek word meaning a siphon. Ancient greek physicians observed one of the most striking symptoms of the disease: people with uncontrolled diabetes usually have a constant, urgent thirst. Though they drink huge quantities of liquids, the fluid seems to run right through them, as water runs through a siphon, for they also have a continual need to urinate. Indeed, it often seems that more fluid comes out than went in. This happens with diabetes.

Later, a second part, mellitus, was added to the name of the disease. Mellitus, was added to the name of the disease. Mellitus comes from a latin word meaning “honey”, and this description was added because some physicians noticed that flies were attracted to honey. When other physicians tried tasting the urine, they discovered that it was sweet. Most people today just talk about “diabetes”, but physicians prefer to use its more precise, full name diabetes mellitus. In this way they avoid confusion with another, very much rarer disease called diabetes insipidus, in which great quanities of urine are also produced, but in which the urine does ot contain sugar.

Many people first discover they have diabetes when a routine medical checkup shows sugar in the blood or urine. They may hav such mild cases that no symptoms have shown up at all; all they have is that telltale trace of sugar. Perhaps their sugar tests are positive only at times of great stress, such as during an infection or during pregnancy, and afterward everything seems to go back to normal. Such cases are examples of latent diabetes.