AN “OUTGOING and fashionable” woman died from a rare diabetic episode a week after her 28th birthday.

Samantha Igweh fell into a diabetic coma after experiencing an uncommon form of the disease sometimes known as type one-and-a-half diabetes, an inquest heard.

The former Cardinal Newman Middle School pupil was found dead in her flat in Church Hill Road, Cowley, on September 27, 2009.

At an inquest at Oxfordshire Coroner’s Court on Tuesday, Dr Jonathan Levy, from the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, said it was likely Miss Igweh had suffered from a fatal ketoacidosis.

It is a “particular manifestation of diabetes which arises out of a near-total lack of insulin in the body”, which could have been triggered by a urinary infection she had days earlier.

He said Nigerian-born Miss Igweh, who has two close relatives with diabetes, “almost certainly had a genetic pre-disposition” to being a diabetic and in her case a “ketosis-prone type two diabetic”, which he said is sometimes called type one-and-a-half.

Dr Levy added: “I think it’s important that although it’s a relatively recently recognised condition, in particular in the US, that you have to be aware it’s a problem in other ethnic groups other than white European.

“In Africans or South Asians, medical professionals need to be aware of it.”

The inquest heard Miss Igweh had visited her GP at the Bartlemas Surgery in East Oxford three days before her death and gave a urine sample which showed raised glucose levels but no ketones, which would have raised alarms.

Asked by Judith Leach, the Igwehs’ solicitor, how people can be diagnosed with the condition, Dr Levy said: “I think you cannot diagnose it at the time.

“I think you can diagnose it with what happens with the experience of the diabetes over time.”

Asked whether he or Miss Igweh’s GP could have done anything to prevent the fatal incident, he replied: “In retrospect, what we should do now in that circumstance is make people very aware that they would be prone to crises should they get an infection.

“It’s very unusual and most people with type two diabetes don’t need such advice.”

Coroner Nicholas Gardiner recorded a verdict that Miss Igweh died of natural causes.

After the hearing, her sister Lydiah, who set up the Talent Oxford competition in Samantha’s memory, urged people with diabetes to ask their doctors for blood tests, not just urine tests.

She said her sister was “very intelligent” with an “outgoing and fashionably smart personality”.