Adult diabetes not so adult any more

Main Category: Diabetes
Article Date: 16 Mar 2004 - 0:00 PDT


The number of teenagers developing type 2 diabetes is growing at such a frightening rate that health officials in the UK, Australia and USA are calling it a serious childhood health threat.

In Australia health officials are getting alarmed. Neville Howerd, Westmead Children's Hospital, said the increase in the number of teen kids developing type 2 diabetes is disturbing. Neville Howard is also President of Diabetes Australia, New South Wales.

He said that from 1990 to 1994 two kids were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes at his hospital. Then the figure crept up to 9 kids in the period 1995 to 1999. From 2000 until now the figure is 36 kids. A sixteen-fold increase since 1990.

Most of the kids he is talking about were obese or overweight.

Until recently, type 2 diabetes was never seen in adults under the age of 40-45. It is due to overweight, inactivity and an unhealthy diet.

Dr. Howard said 'European and Western societies are going to find we are facing a bigger health problem than cancer and this will have a major effect on society unless we turn it around immediately. There is an alarming rise in the incidence and prevalence of type 2 diabetes in young people and our society needs to think about how they are raising and feeding their preschoolers, because it needs to start that early.'

The following information collected from the New South Wales Australasian Pediatric Endocrinology Group register for the past two years is startling:

- 2.4 per 100,000 Australian kids under 15 have type 2 diabetes

- 25-30% of Australian adolescents are overweight or obese

Dr. Howard says he expects the figure of 2.4 per 100,000 to increase persistently unless something serious is done about it.

Dr. Howard advises parents to help children while they still have some control over what their children eat and how much exercise they do. The younger the child, the higher the chances of success are.

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