Diabetes Defined

If you have just found out you have diabetes, or someone you know has just been told he or she has diabetes, it’s usually a shock. Searching for information will help you to learn to live with the news. At this time, diabetes cannot be prevented, but it can be controlled, and you can learn how to live a healthy long life, by following your doctors’ and diabetes educators’ advice. 

Sometimes, people know something is wrong with their health and head off to the doctor to find out why they are feeling unwell. There may be other members of the family who have diabetes (for some, it’s hereditary) and they recognize the symptoms. Other times, people find out about diabetes by routine blood tests, without any warning sign that something different has happened. Although you may hear diabetes called many things like “Sugar Diabetes” (or names we can’t mention here), the medical term for diabetes is Diabetes Mellitus, which means “from the Greek: diabetes: a siphon, and from the Latin: mellitus, honey sweet.”