Posted on 07/26/2006 10:20:16 PM PDT by neverdem
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHICAGO -- Children who get obesity-related diabetes face a much higher risk of kidney failure and death by middle age than people who develop diabetes as adults, a study suggests.
The study offers some of the first strong evidence of the consequences of the nation's growing epidemic of type 2 diabetes in children, said Dr. William Knowler, a co-author and researcher with the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
The research also lends support to warnings that diabetes and other obesity-related ills are on the verge of shortening average life span in the United States.
The study involved Pima Indians in Arizona, who have disproportionately high rates of diabetes and obesity. They may be "the tip of the iceberg, letting us know what's in the future for the rest of America if we don't do something about the childhood obesity epidemic," said Dr. David Ludwig, director of Children's Hospital Boston's obesity program. He was not involved in the research.
The study appears in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.
It involved a group of Indians whom National Institutes of Health researchers have been tracking since 1965. Of the 1,865 participants with type 2 diabetes, 96 developed it in childhood. The average age of youth-onset diabetes was about 17 years, although the disease was diagnosed in children as young as 3 1/2.
During at least 15 years of follow-up, 15, or 16 percent, of those with childhood-onset type 2 diabetes developed end-stage kidney failure or died from diabetic kidney disease by age 55. That compared with 133, or 8 percent, of those who developed diabetes after age 20.
The researchers calculated that the incidence of end-stage kidney failure and death by age 55 was nearly five times higher in people who developed type 2 diabetes before age 20 than in those who developed diabetes in adulthood.
Most of the 20 million Americans with diabetes are adults with type 2. While a generation ago, type 2 diabetes was almost unheard of in children, the incidence has increased substantially in the past decade, largely because of obesity and lack of exercise.
Diabetes impairs the body's ability to regulate blood sugar levels. That can lead to damage to the kidneys and blood vessels throughout the body.
When type 2 diabetes develops earlier in life, it has many more years to cause damage and can lead to premature complications and death, the researchers said.
The American Diabetes' Association's Dr. Larry Deeb said that may not be the only explanation. During adolescence, kidneys are still maturing and may be particularly vulnerable to diabetes' effects, said Deeb, a pediatrics professor at the University of Florida.
While Pima Indians are among ethnic groups believed to have a genetic predisposition toward diabetes and obesity, the researchers said the results probably apply to others as well.
And even in people with a genetic predisposition, weight control and physical activity can help delay the onset of type 2 diabetes.
A recent study by pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts Inc. found that prescriptions for type 2 diabetes drugs doubled among U.S. children ages 5 to 19 from 2002 to 2005.
This message needs to be given over and over again.
"Two reports of prospective screening of obese patients with type 2 diabetes revealed that two to four percent had Cushing's Syndrome. Given how many obese diabetic patients there are, the potential number of cases of undiagnosed Cushing's Syndrome is large."
Student hopes to rebound from brain surgery: Rare disease caused teen to double weight in a year
(This title is misleading...it wasn't brain surgery but pituitary surgery, and the newer medical journal articles and NIH studies are saying it's not nearly as rare as once thought.) Claudette is American Indian, but I'm not sure which tribe. I've talked with her mom several times, but never asked.
Another aesthetically disturbing element of this trend is the sad fact that these overweight kids seem to have zero comprehension of the fact, judging by the way they dress. Muffin-tops abound. Girls fifty pounds overweight wearing skin-tight clothes, fat-rolls hanging out.
I don't know that there's much to be done about it, or even that it's the government's place to TRY to do anything about it, but it will indeed present more and more problems in the years to come.
MM
LOL!
Uniform: 17 year old girl who is easily 50 lbs overweight wearing skintight lowrise jeans. She is also wearing a tight haltertop and a pushup bra to emphasize graphically that her paunch is signifcantly larger than her bosom. In the vast area of flesh between the top of her jeans and the bottom of her blouse can be found a gaudy, inexpensive tattoo sprawled across the "small" of her back and a shiny navel ring protruding from between the rolls of her stomach.
Easily 300 of these on any given day in any mall near me, leading to an increasing spate of mailroder shipping charges to the wideawake household as shopping has become so unpleasant.
Yup, I see you do indeed understand the situation with great clarity.
MM
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.