Malnutrition-related diabetes, distinct from both type 1 and type 2, has now been officially recognized and named “type 5 diabetes.”
The vote to endorse the category took place on April 8, during the International Diabetes Federation’s (IDF’s) World Diabetes Congress, held in Bangkok, Thailand. In January 2025, a panel met in India to draft a consensus statement about the condition, due to be published soon, Meredith Hawkins, MD, professor of medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, told Medscape Medical News.
“Malnutrition-related diabetes has historically been vastly underdiagnosed and poorly understood…The IDF’s recognition of it as ‘type 5 diabetes’ is an important step toward raising awareness of a health problem that is so devastating to so many people,” Hawkins said.
