Diabetes mellitus

variable disorder of carbohydrate metabolism caused by a combination of hereditary and enviromental factors and usually characterised by inadequate secretion or utilization of insulin, by excessive urine production, excessive amounts of sugar in the blood and urine, and by thirst, hunger and loss of weight; distinguished into types 1 (insulin deficiency, mostly through depletion of the pancreateic insulin-producing cells of the islets of Langerhans) and 2 (insulin insensitivity).