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The term diabetes can mean one of two quite different diseases which usually involve excessive urination (polyuria) when untreated:

• the more common "sugar diabetes", diabetes mellitus where the amount of sugar in the blood is excessive
  • type 1 (almost synonymous with juvenile or insulin-dependent diabetes)
  • type 2 (almost synonymous with adult-onset or non-insulin-dependent diabetes)
  • gestational diabetes (during pregnancy) as well as
  • many other types of non-transient hyperglycemia

In most medical contexts, "diabetes" is almost always assumed to mean one of the forms of diabetes mellitus.

• or the less common "water diabetes", diabetes insipidus, where the body is incapable of concentrating urine, leading to increased urine production, fluid loss and thirst.

The current medical shorthand term for diabetes insipidus is "D.I."

The meanings of the descriptors mellitus and insipidus refer to the tastes of the urine in the two conditions (sweet and tasteless, respectively) and date back to the days of gustatory urinalysis ("pisse prophecy").

In common modern usage, "diabetes" always refers to diabetes mellitus.

• Disambiguation pages