Topic
Understanding Neonatal Diabetes
What it is, what causes it, and how it affects the body.
What Is Neonatal Diabetes?
Neonatal diabetes is a rare form of diabetes diagnosed in the first six months of life, caused by a change in a single gene rather than by the immune system.
Why This Is Not Type 1 Diabetes
Neonatal diabetes is caused by a single gene, not by the immune system attacking the pancreas, and that difference can change the treatment entirely.
Transient or Permanent?
Neonatal diabetes comes in two broad forms — one that fades in infancy and one that lasts for life — and genetic testing is what tells them apart.
This Was Set Before Birth
Neonatal diabetes is set by a genetic change before birth, not by anything eaten, done or neglected during pregnancy, and not by how the baby is fed.
What the Pancreas Is and Isn't Doing
In most neonatal diabetes the insulin-making cells exist and are healthy, but the switch that tells them to release insulin is stuck in the wrong position.