Category

Diabetes Diagnosis

Most people have never heard of Ketosis Prone Diabetes: Here is what you need to know

Clinicians once assumed that diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) only occurred in Type 1 diabetes. So when middle-aged, high-body-weight people of African and Caribbean origin presented with DKA, they were diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes even though they didn’t fit the age or weight category: they were older and more overweight than expected. We now know that Ketosis-prone or Flatbush diabetes, an atypical form of diabetes, should have been the diagnosis. But what does it refer to exactly?

Our youngest patient was 10 years old: the new face of the diabetes epidemic

When it comes to diabetes, healthcare professionals could assume until recently that early teenagers presenting with high blood glucose levels were suffering from Type-1 diabetes, an auto-immune form of the disease. As a matter of fact, Type 2 diabetes was so rare among children that it used to be called adult-onset diabetes. Not anymore. African and Caribbean communities are at the forefront of a worrying trend: children being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.