According to recent diabetes news, the British Heart Foundation and the Wellcome Trust has found that South Asian children in the UK face an increased risk of developing diabetes at the age of ten.
Type 2 diabetes was previously called adult-onset diabetes, because it did not usually develop until over the age of forty. The trend in early diagnosis highlights that people are less responsive to the hormone insulin, an essential bodily response to controlling blood glucose levels .
The professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, Dr. Naveed Sattar, reportedly commented: “We already know South Asians are at higher risk for diabetes and the results of this study suggest such higher risk is already evident in childhood. We urgently need studies to determine to what extent such risks can be offset by lifestyle interventions in South Asians. In the meantime, the work reaffirms the message that South Asians have more to lose by excessive weight gain and therefore more reason than the average to maintain a healthy weight and good levels of exercise.”

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