A new study has found that children with type 1 diabetes that then develop asthma can find it even harder to manage their blood sugar levels. The research, which was published in Pediatrics, involved nearly 1,700 children with type 1 diabetes and 311 diagnosed with type 2 diabetes between 2002 and 2005.
It was shown that around 11 per cent of children that suffer from diabetes also have asthma, which may be due to the inflammation from untreated asthma making it more difficult to manage blood sugar levels. For those children with type 1 diabetes, the average level of haemoglobin A1C, which shows long-term blood sugar control, were around 7.8 for those with asthma and 7.5 for those without asthma.
In total, the children with both type 1 diabetes and asthma were at a 37 per cent greater risk of having poor control of their blood sugar levels than to have good control, as compared with those without asthma. The study pointed out “Among youth with type 1 diabetes, asthma is associated with poor glycaemic control, especially if asthma is untreated.”
It was also revealed that using asthma medications had substantial impact on the management of blood sugar, with 72 per cent of the children with type 1 diabetes and asthma that were given daily leukotriene modifiers as a treatment experiencing good blood sugar control, according to the study.

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