Early Stages of Diabetes: Definitions and Present Concepts

Abstract

Definitions are necessary in devising a classification of various types of diabetes mellitus and stages in the evolution or natural history of the disease(s). Definitions and classifications are useful if they can be applied uniformly to various forms and stages of diabetes so that investigators can compare data derived from studies in similarly defined populations groups. In the past, definitions of the stages of the disease have varied between different investigators and in different countries. In April of 1978, the National Diabetes Data Group of the National Institutes of Health convened an International Work Group in Bethesda in the hope of devising a uniformly acceptable classification and terminology of diabetes mellitus. Although the outcome of these deliberations did not deal specifically with early diabetes mellitus, I will try to incorporate some of the definitions proposed at this meeting, and to be published soon, in the attempt to present and define up-to-date concepts of early diabetes mellitus. I should mention at the onset that some of the terms accepted for classification of idiopathic diabetes mellitus and other categories of glucose intolerance are compromises and not ideal solutions.