Mysterious Diabetes Type With 25 Million Cases Gets a Name (1)

Almost two decades after David Phillips noticed a disturbing trend of young, lean people who were under-nourished as children showing up at clinics in northern Ethiopia with diabetes, the unusual form of the disease is finally getting a name.

Type 5 diabetes affects about 25 million people, mostly in poorer countries, and has been neglected and under-researched, a group of experts wrote in The Lancet Global Health on Thursday, calling for the development of diagnostic criteria and treatment guidelines.

The patients’ profile is so unusual that, in a country short on health-care resources like Ethiopia, “there are people who ...