Diabetes in dogs and cats: an update

Abstract

There are actually two major forms of diabetes: diabetes insipidus and diabetes mellitus. Diabetes insipidus (DI) is a term used to describe the obligatory passage of large volumes of extremely dilute urine, usually with a consequent increase in thirst and water intake. DI has many causes. It may result from a failure of production of antidiuretic hormone (vasopressin) by the hypothalamus or a failure of the kidney tubules to respond appropriately to vasopressin. Drugs, infections, hormones, and hypercalcaemia can interfere with the action of vasopressin on the kidney tubules. Typically, the urine of patients with DI does not contain sugar and would not taste sweet (if you unwisely chose to taste it!).

The word 'diabetes' is often used synonymously with diabetes mellitus (DM) or 'sugar diabetes'. Mellitus means sweet and DM gets its name from the fact that the urine of patients with this disease would taste sweet, whereas the urine of patients with DI would taste bland or insipid. Diabetes mellitus is a large and important topic.Therefore, in the remainder of these notes, I shall consider selected aspects of diabetes mellitus in which there has been some recent progress.