What is "diabetic ketoacidosis"?

What is "diabetic ketoacidosis"?

Anne Peters, MD, FACP, CDE (Professor and Director of Clinical Diabetes Programs, USC Keck School of Medicine) gives expert video advice on: How is prediabetes treated?; What happens when a diabetic doesn't get enough hydration? and more...

Diabetic ketoacidosis is a very serious complication that happens only in people with type one diabetes. What diabetic ketoacidosis means is that the body has so little insulin in it that it starts to break down fat. It turns out we need insulin to keep fat in our cells as well as glucose in our cells and when the fat breaks down, it causes a build-up of acid, and that build-up of acid can very quickly cause people to become comatose, they become really hypotensive and their blood pressure falls. It's very serious but also very easy to treat, you just give somebody fluid and insulin, generally by vein, until they get better. You could die from it if you have underlying heart disease, if you're elderly or if somebody doesn't treat you soon enough, because in a day or two in this state, you would be dead. So it's a very serious problem, but very very rare.