Obesity-Linked Diabetes in Children Resists Treatment

NY Times ^ | April 29, 2012 | Denise Grady

[neverdem]

Obesity and the form of diabetes linked to it are taking an even worse toll on America’s youths than medical experts had realized. As obesity rates in children have climbed, so has the incidence of Type 2 diabetes, and a new study adds another worry: the disease progresses more rapidly in children than in adults and is harder to treat.

“It’s frightening how severe this metabolic disease is in children,” said Dr. David M. Nathan, an author of the study and director of the diabetes center at Massachusetts General Hospital. “It’s really got a hold on them, and it’s hard to turn around.”

Before the 1990s, this form of diabetes was hardly ever seen in children. It is still uncommon, but experts say any increase in such a serious disease is troubling. There were about 3,600 new cases a year from 2002 to 2005, the latest years for which data is available.

The research is the first large study of Type 2 diabetes in children, “because this didn’t used to exist,” said Dr. Robin Goland, a member of the research team and co-director of the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. She added, “These are people who are struggling with something that shouldn’t happen in kids who are this young.”

Why the disease is so hard to control in children and teenagers is not known...

[GeronL]

That is so wrong, you probably think they shouldn’t have sex either. Obviously government knows better, these kids need more food stamps.

//sarcasm

[cva66snipe]

In grade school our mornings were devoted to schoolwork and about an hour after lunch. Then it was outside to the playground if warm enough or too the gym till dismissal. High School had a 3 year physical education requirement. Two days a week one semester three days a week the other.

That was only part of it though. We ate pretty much what we wanted. But we also lived in a society where when kids got home from school it was safe to go out and play till supper then back outside till dark. We never held back on eating even junk food & the majority of us were well within weight.

But according to the current unrealistic BMI charts I was also overweight 19 year old skinny as can be when I came out of basic training weighing about 180 pounds.

[pallis]

The weight is most likely the result of their insulin not producing energy, so it is used to store fat. Losing weight would certainly help, but it wouldn’t solve the problem, and it is hard for them to lose weight when they don’t have the energy to exercise enough, and even though they are storing fat, their bodies crave more food for energy.

[neverdem]

Comment# 1 links the abstract. You can link the entire article there for FRee. The following link is another FReebie, the accompanying editorial.

TODAY — A Stark Glimpse of Tomorrow

FReepmail me if you want on or off the diabetes ping list.

[itsahoot]

Then there is this....
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM)– Some North Texas researchers believe they have found a way to control obesity by manipulating molecules in the heart.

Researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas have demonstrated, for the first time, that the heart can regulate energy balance.

“We discovered a protein that’s expressed in the heart, it’s a protein called MED 13, and it turns out that this protein regulates metabolism in the whole body,” explained Dr. Eric Olson, chairman of molecular biology at UT Southwestern.

Dr. Olson said researchers fed mice a high-fat diet, then ‘turned on’ the protein and were genuinely surprised.

“Of course we went back and said ‘wait a minute we better check this again’ and have done it many times,” Olson said, “It was really unexpected. We didn’t go into this looking for a way to treat obesity, it just was a serendipitous observation.”

Of the test Dr. Olson said researchers learned, “We can make them resistant to obesity,” but that wasn’t all, “We can also treat many of the other aspects of abnormal metabolism like the struggle to lower cholesterol and improve glucose handling in these animals.”

Researchers said despite their high-fat diet the mice stayed lean as long as the protein was ‘activated’. When the protein was removed the mice become obese.

Olson said they’re now using the protein to develop an obesity drug that might also be used to combat high cholesterol and Type 2 Diabetes. But researchers say that drug is still a long way from even being tested in humans.

[WildHighlander57]

Yup, run around outside, ride bikes, climb stuff after school.
In grade school had recess twice a day (maybe more).
In middle school and high school had an hour of physical ed every day... worked up enough of a sweat that we had to take showers.

I remember just a few really overweight kids, but their parents were that way also, so there was a hereditary effect.

We didn’t have the high fructose corn syrup, wheat, and dairy in EVERYTHING back then either.

[TheOldLady]

You beat me to it, Mr. (or Ms) Right. The fat-removal madness of the late 90's is also responsible. The fat has been replaced with carbs, which cause Type II. If parents let children eat more fat and fewer carbs, this problem would solve itself.

It's completely artificial, caused by a government propaganda campaign against fat. Natural fats, including saturated, are healthful. It's the man-made partially hydrogenated fats that are so deadly, especially in combination with high carbs. But the propaganda lumped these two types of fat together and recommended eating none.

Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water. This is a classic example.

[America_Right]

We all ate crap (sugar/carbs) as kids in the 60's and virtually no one was fat. It's called "lack of exercise". Video game and cellphone obsession has replaced physical activity.

Yeah, but back then, we actually had healthy food to eat. Nowadays, if you don't read the label on everything, you are gonna get a LOT of processed garbage (sugar), corn syrup (sugar), and starches (sugar). This is the crap that is killing our kids.
Exercise is good and all, but our bodies weren't designed to handle all this sugary filler that is put into almost everything we buy at a grocery store nowadays.

[neverdem]

“We discovered a protein that’s expressed in the heart, it’s a protein called MED 13, and it turns out that this protein regulates metabolism in the whole body,” explained Dr. Eric Olson, chairman of molecular biology at UT Southwestern.

Dr. Olson said researchers fed mice a high-fat diet, then ‘turned on’ the protein and were genuinely surprised.

It makes sense in that it's been known for a while that that heart can use free fatty acids for energy when blood glucose gets low. The brain can only use glucose.

[neverdem]

Thanks for the links.