Difference between diabetes mellitus & diabetes insipidus.

When I was at nursing school we learned a lot about diabetes mellitus and very little about diabetes insipidus, but I remember some of the main differences. Both conditions involve thirst and and frequent urination, but there are many other differences between them. Diabetes mellitus means honey sweet urine and it is caused by a lack of insulin. In the some cases the pancreas doesn't produces enough insulin and in some cases it produces insulin, but the cells are not able to respond to the insulin. Diabetes insipidus means insipid urine and it is caused by lack of a diuretic hormone. The urine becomes very diluted and colourless and the patient might become dehydrated.

The difference is the hormones that affect body. In Diabetes mellitus,it's either our body fails to produce the hormone called "insulin" to used our blood sugar to convert into energy or our body fails to use the insulin properly resulting to high level of blood sugar. In diabetes insipidus, our body fails to produce the hormone called "antidiuretic hormone" which control our urination, thus, lacking of this hormone will result in excretion of large amount of urine and extreme thirst.