17 Sep 2025 10:00
Meredith Hawkins and Nihal Thomas on type 5 diabetes
70 years ago this year, a researcher at University College of the West Indies in Jamaica published a paper in The Lancet describing a case series of patients with diabetes who did not have the typical hallmarks of type 1 or type 2 disease. They were young, underweight, resistant to insulin, and did not tend to have ketoacidosis.
The condition was coined J-type diabetes, after Jamaica, and it was briefly recognised by WHO as malnutrition-related diabetes. However, WHO removed it from its official classification in 1999, because of insufficient evidence of its association with malnutrition.
In this episode of In Conversation With, Professor Meredith Hawkins and Professor Nihal Thomas explain how this “lost” condition, which they estimate affects 25 million people worldwide, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, is now becoming more widely recognised and better understood, albeit with a long way to go in terms of additional research. They also propose a new name: type 5 diabetes. Listen now to explore the fascinating history of the disorder and the urgent need for effective treatments.
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