Obesity-Driven Diabetes Soars Among Kids, Teens

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Obesity-Driven Diabetes

Soars Among Kids, Teens

By Andre Picard

The Globe and Mail

5-13-5

 

The number of children and adolescents diagnosed with Type 2

diabetes has soared 15-fold in the past generation, and become a global

phenomenon, according to a new study.

 

There is also evidence that half the young people with Type 2

diabetes don't yet know it, and could suffer serious heart and kidney damage

as a result, researchers report in today's edition of The Journal of

Pediatrics.

 

Type 2 diabetes is a lifestyle-related disease, usually associated

with obesity and inactivity. The condition was long believed to be exclusive

to adults. Children and adolescents tended to develop Type 1 diabetes, a

condition whose causes are unknown.

 

In the late 1970s, the first pediatric cases of Type 2 diabetes were

identified in aboriginal communities in Canada and the United States. By

1990, about 3 per cent of new cases of diabetes in children and adolescents

were identified as Type 2.

 

Today, that figure has risen to 45 per cent.

 

" Though the diagnosis was initially regarded with skepticism, Type 2

diabetes mellitus is now a serious diagnostic consideration in all young

people who present with signs and symptoms of diabetes, " said Orit

Pinhas-Hamiel, a pediatric endocrinologist in the diabetes unit of Sheba

Medical Center in Rananna, Israel.

 

She said the new research also demonstrates that Type 2 diabetes is

" not limited to certain ethnic groups, nor to particular regions, but has

now become nearly universal. "

 

To conduct the study, Dr. Pinhas-Hamiel and her team collected and

analyzed all the published research on Type 2 diabetes in youth. They found

a total of 110 research papers, a scant amount for a disease with such vast

health implications.

 

The research revealed that there is an ever-expanding list of

countries where Type 2 diabetes is being reported, in large numbers, among

children and adolescents.

 

Disease patterns are following those of adults -- meaning the

incidence is rising in concert with the increase in obesity and inactivity.

 

Overall, countries with the highest rates of Type 2 diabetes in

adults also have high rates in children.

 

But Dr. Pinhas-Hamiel noted that even in countries with a much lower

incidence of Type 2 diabetes than is found in North America, substantial

numbers of young people are developing the condition.

 

In Japan, for example, 80 per cent of new cases of diabetes in

children and adolescents are Type 2. In the past generation, the incidence

of Type 2 diabetes has jumped tenfold, while the incidence of Type 1 has

remained unchanged.

 

Among Native Americans, about 70 per cent of new diabetes cases are

Type 2. According to the research, Pima Indians in Central Arizona have the

highest recorded rate of Type 2 diabetes in the world --- 5.1 per cent of

adolescents aged 15 to 19, and 2.2 per cent of those aged 10 to 14 suffer

from the condition.

 

Canada's Ojibwa-Cree, whose territory stretches from Alberta to

Quebec, are not that far behind, with rates of Type 2 diabetes of 3.5 per

cent in the 15-to-19 age group, and 2.5 per cent in the 5-to-14 group.

 

In healthy people, cells in the pancreas respond to the level of

glucose (a type of sugar) in the blood and secrete insulin, as necessary. In

those with Type 1 diabetes, the cells are destroyed for some unknown reason.

Type 1 diabetics produce little or no insulin, a hormone that enables the

body's cells to absorb glucose from the blood stream and use it for energy.

 

In Type 2 diabetes, a person gradually loses the ability to

manufacture insulin or use it efficiently, leading to complications from

improper blood-sugar levels.

 

Diabetes is a leading cause of heart disease, kidney failure,

blindness and amputation.

 

All Type 1 diabetics inject insulin. Type 2 diabetics can control

blood sugars with drugs, exercise and by maintaining a healthy weight, but

sometimes require injected insulin as well.

 

About 2.25 million Canadians have diabetes, according to the

Canadian Diabetes Association. About 90 per cent suffer from Type 2, and the

balance have Type 1.

 

Diabetes is one of the leading causes of death in Canada, accounting

for about 41,500 deaths annually.

 

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