Type 1 Diabetes Is Becoming More Common In US Children.

The Wall Street Journal  (6/11, A5, Linebaugh, Subscription Publication) reports that, according to research funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes for Health, type 1 diabetes is becoming more common in US children. In a statement, Guiseppina Imperatore, a medical epidemiologist at CDC, said, "This is of grave concern, because these youth will live with diabetes most of their lives and may develop diabetes-related complications." Imperatore added, "Preliminary data suggest that complications may already be developing in this generation."

        MedPage Today  (6/11, Fiore) reports, "Between 2001 and 2009, prevalence of type 1 disease rose 23% and prevalence of type 2 rose 21%, said Dana Dabelea, MD, PhD, of the University of Colorado in Denver, and colleagues during a press briefing at the American Diabetes Association meeting." The information "for two studies done by Dabelea's group come from the SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth Study, looking at teens and adolescents under age 20 from regions in Ohio, Colorado, Washington, and South Carolina between 2001 and 2009." Altogether, "about 189,000 youths had diabetes in 2009: 168,000 with type 1 and 19,000 with type 2."

        HealthDay  (6/10, Gordon) reported that according to Dr. Dabelea, "For type 2, we have some clues as to why it's increasing, but for type 1, we still need to better understand the triggers of this disease." The researchers "also found that children with type 2 were more likely to have protein in their urine than children with type 1 diabetes, suggesting that they might be at greater risk for early kidney damage."