- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Today, that figure has risen to 45 per cent.
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- "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.
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- 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."
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Disease patterns are following those of adults -- meaning
the incidence is rising in concert with the increase in obesity and inactivity.
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- Overall, countries with the highest rates of Type 2 diabetes
in adults also have high rates in children.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Diabetes is a leading cause of heart disease, kidney
failure, blindness and amputation.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Diabetes is one of the leading causes of death in Canada,
accounting for about 41,500 deaths annually.
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