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Dehydrated & False Positive Diabetes

Diabetes is an illness that affects metabolism by hindering the body's ability to process and use glucose for energy despite the high presence of glucose in the blood. Dehydration is a possible factor influencing false positive diagnosis for diabetes when using a urine dipstick test for evaluation.

  1. Types of Diabetes

    • The three types of diabetes are Type 1, formerly called insulin-dependent diabetes; Type 2, formerly called non-insulin dependent diabetes; and gestational diabetes mellitus, or GDM.

    Urine Ketones

    • The liver creates ketones during the process of fatty acid metabolism. During this process, ketones will be entirely metabolized and therefore not present or minimally present in the urine when the body is working properly. However, when there is an inability of the body to provide the proper amount of glucose, it will turn to fat stores for energy. When this happens, the presence of ketones is elevated in urine and blood.

    False Positives

    • A false positive, according to Merriam Webster's Medical Dictionary, refers to "a test result that is erroneously classified in a positive category (as of diagnosis) because of imperfect testing methods or procedures." Urine ketone strips used for testing can provide false positive test results in the diagnosis of diabetes when strips are degraded or when high amounts of acid are present within the urine.

    Dehydration

    • Dehydration is one of many factors that can result in a false positive diagnosis of ketones in the urine. Other contributing factors include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, anorexia and starvation.

    Re-testing

    • When doubts are present concerning the accuracy of urine ketone testing, blood ketone testing can be performed for greater accuracy in diagnosing diabetes.

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