NEW DELHI: Formally recognising Type-5 diabetes, a lesser-known malnutrition-related form of diabetes, can help develop diagnostic criteria and aid in effective management of the condition, affecting an estimated six million people in India and 25 million worldwide, global experts outlined in a new article published in The Lancet Global Health journal on Thursday.
Type-5 diabetes is a type of diabetes that typically affects lean and malnourished teenagers and young adults in low- and middle-income countries. It is estimated to affect 20 to 25 million people worldwide, mainly in Asia and Africa.
“It is more common in low-resource settings and in regions with a higher prevalence of undernutrition. An individual with a history of intrauterine undernutrition, followed by persistent undernutrition in adulthood, is postulated to be at high risk of type 5 diabetes, ” Meredith Hawkins, Professor of Medicine at the Global Diabetes Institute at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, US, told IANS.
“It is estimated that approximately about 6 million people in India have type 5 diabetes (given 101 million people with diabetes in India, with about 6 per cent of those with diabetes being underweight), ” she added.
The condition now known as ‘type 5 diabetes’ has been reported in many low and middle-income countries (LMICs), including India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria, and Indonesia, over the past 70 years. This led the World Health Organization to classify this condition as malnutrition-related diabetes mellitus in 1985; however, this classification was removed in 1999.
As a result, research and funding opportunities became limited, which later also caused confusion and inconsistency in diagnostic reports.
“Establishing formal recognition with standardised diagnostic criteria would help bring clarity and consistency to how the disease is defined across different healthcare settings. It would also increase awareness among clinicians, leading to improved screening and diagnosis, especially in individuals who might currently be misclassified as having Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes. A structured and evidence-based definition is crucial for the accurate identification and effective management of type 5 diabetes, ” Hawkins said.