More children being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in the US

Wed, 30 Mar 2011
A new report has found that an increasing number of children in the US are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, a condition that used to be known as adult-onset diabetes .

The study, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, showed that around 3,700 people in the US under the age of 20 are diagnosed every year for type 2 diabetes, and that the trend has been growing over the last decade.

Another recent study of eighth-grade students in communities at high risk of diabetes in the US revealed that over half of the children were either overweight or obese, and that nearly a third of them had pre-diabetes . More work is being done to pinpoint problems earlier, with pediatricians checking children in an attempt to delay, or sometimes prevent, the onset of type 2 diabetes by prescribing lifestyle changes.

There are now reported to be over 25 million people in the US suffering from diabetes, more than 90 percent of which have the type 2 variety, and an additional 79 million who are thought to have pre-diabetes, where levels of blood sugar are high but not as much as in diabetes.

It is recommended that children with factors such as a neck rash, a family history of diabetes and whose weight is very high should be screened for diabetes.

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