Neonatal diabetes

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. 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.

Specific genes that can cause NDM have been identified. The onset of NDM can be caused by abnormal pancreatic development, beta cell dysfunction or accelerated beta cell dysfunction. 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.