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Page: Terminology
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The term diabetes (Greek: ????????) was coined by Aretaeus of Cappadocia. It is derived from the Greek word ??????????, diabai'nein that literally means "passing through," or "siphon", a reference to one of diabetes' major symptoms—excessive urine production. In 1675 Thomas Willis added the word mellitus to the disease, a word from Latin meaning "honey", a reference to the sweet taste of the urine. This sweet taste had been noticed in urine by the ancient Greeks, Chinese, Egyptians, and Indians. In 1776 Matthew Dobson confirmed that the sweet taste was because of an excess of a kind of sugar in the urine and blood of people with diabetes.
The ancient Indians tested for diabetes by observing whether ants were attracted to a person's urine, and called the ailment "sweet urine disease" (Madhumeha). The Korean, Chinese, and Japanese words for diabetes are based on the same ideographs (???) which mean "sugar urine disease".
Diabetes, without qualification, usually refers to diabetes mellitus, but there are several rarer conditions also named diabetes. The most common of these is diabetes insipidus (insipidus meaning "without taste" in Latin) in which the urine is not sweet; it can be caused by either kidney (nephrogenic DI) or pituitary gland (central DI) damage.
The term "type 1 diabetes" has universally replaced several former terms, including childhood-onset diabetes, juvenile diabetes, and insulin-dependent diabetes. "Type 2 diabetes" has also replaced several older terms, including adult-onset diabetes, obesity-related diabetes, and non-insulin-dependent diabetes. Beyond these numbers, there is no agreed standard. Various sources have defined "type 3 diabetes" as, among others:
* Gestational diabetes
* Insulin-resistant type 1 diabetes (or "double diabetes")
* Type 2 diabetes which has progressed to require injected insulin.
* Latent autoimmune diabetes of adults (or LADA or "type 1.5" diabetes)
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