New type of diabetes officially recognised: type 5

A new type of diabetes that’s linked not to obesity but to malnutrition has been officially recognised, decades after it was first observed in developing countries.

The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) this month officially recognised the disease as “Type 5 diabetes” or Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young (Mody).

The rare form of diabetes is believed to affect about 25 million people globally, and is caused by malnutrition-induced low insulin production among lean and malnourished teenagers and young adults in low and middle-income households, according to reports.

The new disease, distinct from Type 1 and 2 diabetes, was officially recognised through a vote on 8 April at the IDF’s World Diabetes Congress in Bangkok, Thailand following years of debate over its identification.

Meredith Hawkins, professor of medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said malnutrition-related diabetes “has historically been vastly underdiagnosed and poorly understood”.

“The IDF’s recognition of it as ‘Type 5 diabetes’ is an important step toward raising awareness of a health problem that is so devastating to so many people.”

Type 5 diabetes is a rare, inherited form of the disease that develops in the early teens or 20s in people who have a genetic mutation passed from parent to child. If a parent has the affected gene, their children have a 50 per cent chance of also being carriers.

It is not caused by being obese or through lifestyle choices. Mody is estimated to affect up to 25 million people globally, mainly young men in Asia and Africa with a body mass index less than 19kg/m2, according to experts.