Obesity-related diabetes rising in US kids

A tidal wave of “diabesity”, a new term coined to reflect a form of Diabetes Mellitus brought on by Obesity, is sweeping through American children, said a pediatrician who has published a new book on the affliction.

Francine Kaufman, an endocrinologist at Children’s Hospital here, compared the rise in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus among overweight children to a tsunami starting in the mid-1990s.

“I have gone through new diseases as a physician, like AIDS; some of the infectious diseases come and go,” Kaufman said.

“But Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus was kind of like a tsunami coming at you,” she said.

Type 2 diabetes mellitus, more often known as type 2 diabetes, is the most common type of diabetes. Unlike in type 1 diabetes, people with type 2 diabetes may make healthy or even high levels of insulin. But, their body cells do not use insulin effectively. This resistance to insulin is often caused by obesity.
Insulin is a hormone that helps control the level of glucose in the blood. Glucose is the main form of sugar in the body. When the body cannot control the level of glucose, it has a hard time converting food into the energy that the body needs to work. There are other forms of diabetes
as well.

Diabetes is a disease in which the body does not produce insulin—a hormone which converts sugar and starches into energy—or resists insulin, eventually damaging the pancreas.

Type 1 diabetes is very often genetically determined, but the more common Type 2, in which the cells don’t convert insulin, can often be linked to behavior and lifestyle.

Kaufman recalled that when she was in medical school in the 1970s, she learned that Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus appeared mainly among people over 50.

But in the past decade, the disease has cropped up more and more among overweight children, she said.

“In the mid-nineties ... we were starting to look at this Obesity epidemic among children and adults,” she told AFP. “There was a very short lag time before the complications of Obesity became apparent, even with the children.”

“Many more children had high blood pressure, many more children had abnormal blood cholesterol, and for the first time children had Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, which weren’t there before,” she said.

In her hospital, children suffering from Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus comprise 25 percent of all diabetes cases, as much as 10 times the normal rate, according to Kaufman.

The high number is directly related to the level of Obesity in the country, according to Kaufman, with 30 percent of adults considered overweight. She tied this in turn to the popularity of fast food and sweet drinks and the low consumption of fruits and vegetables.

Though treatable, diabetes cannot be cured and can result in heart attacks, strokes, kidney failures and blindness. It can slice 20 years off of one’s life expectation, according to Kaufman.

“This has a huge impact on the health system in terms of dollars spent,” she said.

Diabetes is on the rise not only in the United States. The number of cases has exploded in China, India and Latin America, and could reach 330 million worldwide in 2020, Kaufman said.

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