Diabetes is a disease in which blood glucose levels are above normal. Most of the food we eat is turned into glucose, or sugar, for our bodies to use for energy. The pancreas, an organ that lies near the stomach, makes a hormone called insulin to help glucose get into the cells of our bodies. When you have diabetes, your body either doesn't make enough insulin or can't use its own insulin as well as it should. This causes sugar to build up in your blood.

1. Fluid Consumption due to Lung Heat
Chief Manifestations: Polydipsia, thirst right after drinking, dry tongue and mouth, polyuria, insufficient saliva, red tongue with yellow thin coating, bounding and rapid pulse.

2. Excessive Fire in the Stomach
Chief Manifestations: Polyphagia with susceptibility to hunger, emaciation, dry mouth, thirst, constipation, red tongue with dry yellow coating, and smooth, solid and forceful pulse.

3. Deficiency of Kidney Yin
Chief Manifestations: Polyuria, cloudy urine, dry mouth and lips, emaciation, sore and weak knees and loins, red tongue with little coating, deep, thready and rapid pulse.

4. Deficiency of Both Oi and Yin
Chief Manifestations: No obvious polydipsia, polyuria or polyphagia but dry mouth and throat, lassitude, palpitation, short breath, spontaneous sweating, night sweating, feverish sensation of the chest, palms and soles, insomnia, dreamfulness, scanty dark yellow urine, constipation, red tongue with reduced saliva, swollen tongue or with teeth marks, thin coating or geographic tongue, wiry and thready pulse or smooth and rapid pulse.

5. Deficiency of Both Yin and Yang
Chief Manifestations: Frequent urination with cloudy urine (as frequent as once after each drink), dark face, sore and weak loins and knees, cold body, aversion to cold, impotence, pale tongue with white coating, deep thready and forceless pulse.

6. Deficiency of Both Qi and Blood
Chief Manifestations: Prolonged course of illness, lassitude, drowsiness, weakness, short breath, hypologia, pale lips and nails, lusterless hair, emaciation, dry mouth, thirst, cloudy and sweet urine, emaciation with good appetite or anorexia with abdominal distension, inclination for sitting and dislike for moving, palpitation, insomnia, white and dry tongue coating with reduced saliva, thready and weak pulse.

7. Phlegm Stagnation and Blood Stasis
Chief Manifestations: Fat physique, heavy head and body, localized stabbing pain on certain part of the body, dark purple lips and extremities, or numbness of limbs, sensation of stickiness and greasiness in the mouth, loss of appetite, dark purple tongue with ecchymosis, thick and greasy coating, smooth or unsmooth pulse.