diabetes insipidus

Meaning

Noun

• A disease characterized by excretion of large amount of severely diluted urine, which cannot be reduced when fluid intake is reduced. It is generally related to a tumor or insult to the pituitary gland, where the hormonal signals the pituitary gives to the kidneys break down, and the kidneys do not conserve water, but express all water as urine. This is a rather rare disease.

Origin

• From Latin diabetes insipidus. Literally "tasteless diabetes" as opposed to diabetes mellitus ("sweet diabetes") because of the absence of glucose in urine in the former.