Neonatal diabetes | |
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Neonatal infant |
Neonatal diabetes mellitus (NDM) is a disease that affects an infant and their body's ability to produce or use insulin. NDM is a kind of diabetes that is monogenic (regulated by a single gene) and arises in the first 6 months of life. Infants do not produce enough insulin, leading to an increase in glucose accumulation. It is a rare disease, occurring in only one in 100,000 to 500,000 live births.[1] NDM can be mistaken for the much more common type 1 diabetes, but type 1 diabetes usually occurs later than the first 6 months of life. There are two types of NDM: permanent neonatal diabetes mellitus (PNDM), a lifelong condition, and transient neonatal diabetes mellitus (TNDM), a form of diabetes that disappears during the infant stage but may reappear later in life.[1]
Specific genes that can cause NDM have been identified.[2] The onset of NDM can be caused by abnormal pancreatic development, beta cell dysfunction or accelerated beta cell dysfunction.[3] Along with maturity-onset diabetes of the young (MODY), NDM is a form of monogenic diabetes. Individuals with monogenic diabetes can pass it on to their children or future generations. Each gene associated with NDM has a different inheritance pattern.