Patients wrongly diagnosed

ONE in five adults with type 1 diabetes are being wrongly diagnosed with the type 2 form of the disease.

The conditions are not similar and require very different treatments.

Misdiagnosis could put patients’ lives in danger because they are given the wrong drugs, the Exeter University researchers said.

Type 1 diabetes, which is thought to be genetic, is an irreversible autoimmune disease which stops insulin being produced. it is treated by insulin injections.

Type 2 diabetes is strongly linked to lifestyle and obesity. It is treated with diet or pills such as metformin.

Type 1 is often considered a ‘disease of childhood’. But 40 per cent of new cases occur after the age of 30.