Diabetes is skyrocketing among young people in the United States, with decades of research

A nearly 20-year new federal-funded study found a surge in diabetes among children, teens, and adolescents in the United States, with a 45% increase in type 1 diabetes and a 95% increase in type 2 diabetes. I did.

“Increased diabetes is always a nuisance, especially in adolescents. An increased incidence of diabetes, especially preventable type 2 diabetes, can lead to a chain of poor health,” said the CDC’s Diabetes Translation Division. Said Dr. Giuseppina Imperatore, Head of Monitoring, Epidemiology, Economics and Statistics. Said in a statement released on Tuesday. “Youth are more likely to develop diabetic complications at an earlier age and are at increased risk of premature death compared to people who develop diabetes in adulthood.”

Survey results published in JAMA On Tuesday, we showed that type 1 diabetes remains the most common type of diabetes among young people in the United States. Results came from an average of 3.5 million Americans under the age of 20 surveyed annually from 2001 to 2017 in California, Colorado, Ohio, South Carolina, Washington, Arizona, and Mexico. The results show that Americans under the age of 19 have a significant increase in type 1 diabetes from 1.48 per 1,000 to 2.15 per 1,000 by 2017, a 45% increase over 16 years, compared to 10-19 years. Children showed a prevalence of type 2 diabetes. It increased from 0.34 per 1,000 adolescents to 0.67 per 1,000 adolescents, an increase of 95.3 percent over 16 years.

The authors of the study stated that there was no significant difference in the increase in diabetes prevalence by gender.

The study found that the largest increase in type 2 diabetes was among blacks and Hispanic adolescents, and the largest increase in estimated prevalence of type 1 diabetes was among blacks and white adolescents. .. Children under the age of 9 with type 2 diabetes were excluded from the study due to their small sample size.

Diabetes is a chronic health condition that affects how the body converts food into energy. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “If you have diabetes, your body doesn’t produce enough insulin or you can’t use it properly. You don’t have enough insulin or your cells respond to insulin. If you don’t, you have too much blood sugar left in your bloodstream. Over time, it can cause serious health problems such as heart disease, loss of vision, and kidney disease. “

There is no cure, but diabetics can manage their illness through medication, insulin therapy, weight loss, a healthy diet and exercise. Most people with diabetes have type 2 diabetes, which develops over the years and is usually diagnosed in adulthood, but the increase in diagnosis occurs early in life. increase. Type 1 diabetes is thought to be accompanied by an autoimmune reaction that prevents the body from making insulin. People with type 1 diabetes make up about 5% to 10% of diabetics and are usually diagnosed in childhood and require daily insulin.

The CDC states that diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States, and that in the last two decades, the proportion of adults diagnosed with diabetes has more than doubled.

“Further research is needed to better understand the underlying causes of the increase in type 1 and type 2 diabetes in young people in the United States,” said the lead author of the treatise and director of the Diabetes Epidemiology Program in the Diabetes Division. Said Jean Lawrence. The endocrinology and metabolic disorders of the NIH National Institute for Diabetes, Gastroenterology and Kidney Disease were stated in a statement. “Increased prevalence of type 2 diabetes can be caused by increased childhood obesity, maternal obesity and intrauterine exposure to diabetes, or increased diabetes screening. Diabetes can be caused by these with age. There are concerns about the impact of diabetes on young people as it can have a negative impact on young people and can be an early indicator of the health of future generations. “