A form of diabetes characterised by early age of onset (usually less than 25 years of age), autosomal dominant inheritance (that is, it is inherited by 50% of a parent's children) with diabetes in at least 2 generations of the patient's family. MODY diabetes that can often be controlled with meal planning or diabetes pills, at least in the early stages of diabetes. It differs from type 2 diabetes in that patients have a defect in insulin secretion or glucose metabolism, and are not resistant to insulin. MODY accounts for about 2% of diabetes worldwide and 6 genes have so far been found that cause MODY, although not all MODY patients have one of these genes. Because MODY runs in families, it is useful for studying diabetes genes and has given researchers useful information about how insulin is produced and regulated by the pancreas.

This definition is in context to Diabetes. See more contextual defintions for Maturity-Onset Diabetes of the Young (MODY).