Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus: The Initial Lesion

Abstract

SUFFICIENT evidence has accumulated over the past decade to allow the statement that insulin-requiring, or insulin-dependent, diabetes mellitus (IDDM; also known as juvenile-onset, Type I, ketosis-prone, or labile diabetes) is pathogenically a distinct disorder from non-insulin-dependent diabetes (NIDDM; also known as maturity-onset, Type II, non-ketosis-prone, or stable diabetes).^{1 , 2} This separation into two broad categories is made on the basis of several factors, such as the mean age at onset, the association with certain alleles in the major histocompatibility complex (HLA associations), the presence of circulating islet-cell antibodies, the round-cell infiltration in the endocrine pancreas, and other phenomena that are all . . .