A rapid increase in the number of children in the United States who have diabetes has been reported in a new study.
Scientists at the University of Colorado School of Public Health have shown that diabetes is rising rapidly among US children, with an increase of over 20 per cent over the last decade. It was revealed that there are around 189,000 people who are under the age of 20 with diabetes in the United States, with 168,000 of those having developed type 1 diabetes and over 19,000 having type 2. However, between 2001 and 2009, the number of US children with type 1 rose by 23 per cent, while the number with type 2 diabetes increased by 21 per cent.
It was also claimed that kids with type 2 diabetes were at a greater risk of having protein in their urine than those with type 1 diabetes, which means they could be more likely to have early kidney damage. In addition, diabetic children who watched over three hours of TV every day had worse control of their blood sugar and higher levels of triglycerides than those who watched less TV.
Much of the rise in type 2 diabetes has been put down to the increasing number of overweight and obese kids, with 17 per cent of children and teenagers in the United States now being classified as obese, three times that of a generation ago.

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