Diabetes Increasing In Children

A new nationally representative study has confirmed that from 2001 to 2009 the incidence of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes has drastically increased in children and adolescents.
Type 1 diabetes increased 21 percent in children up to the age of 19 and the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes increased 30 percent in children between the ages of 10 and 19.
Dr. Robin S. Goland, co-director of the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia University Medical Center in New York says that those are big numbers. "In my career, Type 1 diabetes was a rare disease in children, and Type 2 disease didn't exist."
The article was published in JAMA in May and includes data from more than 3 million people younger than 20 from five states: California, Colorado, Ohio, South Carolina, and Washington. Funding came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health and is part of a continuing study, Search for Diabetes in Youth.
Historically, children affected by Type 1 diabetes were white, but the new report says that the prevalence has also increased in black and Latino youth.
Many minority youth are less likely to control their high blood sugar and will have more complications like eye disease, kidney disease, heart disease, and amputations, said Dr. Dana Dabela, the lead author of the study and a professor of epidemiology and pediatrics at the Colorado School of Public Health.
Traditionally, Type 2 diabetes has affected adults, but the new study reported increases among black, white, and Latino children.
Reference: Dispatch
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