Diabetes Rising Relentlessly in Kids

This week in the New England Journal of Medicine, a new report provides the clearest picture of diabetes trends in kids that we’ve ever had. It’s not a pretty picture. We see new cases of  diabetes rising relentlessly in kids. Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes cases are rising.

Startling Trends in Black and Native American Youth

The trends observed in non-hispanic black and Native American children are especially startling. New cases of type 2 diabetes more than doubled in this sample of Native American adolescents between 2004 and 2012. Among black adolescents, it fell just short of doubling. For type 2 diabetes, the researchers saw no significant increase in non-Hispanic white adolescents.

For type 1 diabetes, the researchers saw growth in new cases for children almost across the board. The exception was in Native American children, where a clear trend was not evident. White children had the highest rate for new cases of type 1 diabetes.

These numbers are ominous.

The astounding growth of type 2 diabetes in children already facing huge health disparities points to a bleak future. At least in part, ineffective efforts to prevent childhood obesity are creating a huge debt. That debt will come due as these children become adults facing a lifetime of chronic diseases.

Click here to read the study, here to read a companion editorial, and here to read more from NIH.

Bad Moon Rising, photograph © halfrain / flickr

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April 14, 2017