From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishdiabetesdi‧a‧be‧tes /ˌdaɪəˈbiːtiːz, -tɪs/ noun [uncountable] MIa serious disease in which there is too much sugar in your bloodGRAMMAR: Singular or plural verb?Diabetes is followed by a singular verb: Diabetes is linked to obesity.
Examples from the Corpus
diabetes• Conditions such as diabetes, heart complaints, multiple sclerosis and alcoholism should be declared.• Nationwide, for every two persons with diagnosed diabetes, there is another undiagnosed person.• Gestational diabetes recurs in about 50 percent of women who had the problem in a previous pregnancy.• He continued to practice despite his diabetes.• Catecholamines and the nervous system Abnormalities of the nervous system have been implicated in the development of hypertension in diabetes.• Thus diseases like diabetes, schizophrenia, and obesity were rare in the developed world by 2010.• Several hormones, particularly insulin, the hormone that is deficient in sugar diabetes, control these processes.• For the non-obese patients, simply reducing the intake of refined carbohydrate may control the diabetes for a time at least.Origin diabetes (1500-1600) Latin Greek, from diabainein “to pass through” 