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Diabetes

Diabetes results from the pancreas' inability to produce adequate amounts of insulin, a hormone especially important for metabolizing carbohydrates. The chief signs of diabetes are increased drinking, increased urination, and weight loss.
"When food is digested," explains Michael Henson, D.V.M., "it's broken down into basics such as sugars and amino acids, which are then absorbed into the bloodstream." Insulin is needed for transporting basic food substances, particularly sugar or glucose, into body cells, says Henson, a resident in internal medicine and a feline-diabetes researcher at the University of Minnesota. The body uses sugar for energy, growth, and repair. What's more, sugar opens the cells' gates so that glucose can move from the bloodstream into tissue cells where it's needed--in muscles, for example.
Without enough insulin, glucose accumulates in the bloodstream. Because it cannot move into the tissues where its presence is required, it is lost in urine. Body water is lost in urine, too. Consequently diabetics produce a large volume of urine. This, in turn, "causes changes in urinary habits," says Henson. "Cats urinate more frequently, or they urinate outside the litterbox. The high urine output also increases thirst."
Although blood-glucose levels are excessively high in diabetic cats, their tissues are starving for energy because glucose cannot get into their cells. As a result, diabetic cats usually lose weight. Remedy