{"id":46855,"date":"2017-04-25T08:21:18","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T12:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=46855"},"modified":"2017-04-25T08:23:45","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T12:23:45","slug":"rates-of-type-1-and-type-2-diabetes-are-increasing-in-youth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=46855","title":{"rendered":"The Alarming Rise of Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes in Children and Teens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having lived with type 1 diabetes since the age of four, I can say with certainty that, while it doesn\u2019t stop me from living a full life, it gets in the way and adds stress and anxiety to what should be normal daily activities. A 20 minute walk can send my blood sugars plummeting on some occasions, while a 30 minute walk on another day might not impact my blood sugar levels at all. I have learned to fine tune and predict as much as possible, but diabetes is still a major obstacle that I have to contend with not only daily, but hourly, sometimes even many times an hour. If I had to calculate the time I spent managing diabetes each day, month or year, it wouldn’t be much less than the same as the amount of time I spend breathing. Diabetes is always on my mind and I\u2019m constantly making decisions based on it, so to read the results of a 10 year study about increasing rates of diabetes in young people is a tough pill to swallow.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0study<\/a>,\u00a0recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine<\/a>, shows that the annual rate of newly-diagnosed cases of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes in young people increased considerably from 2002-2012.<\/p>\n

Why is this happening?<\/p>\n

In the case of \u00a0type 2 diabetes, weight is often a contributing factor. But there are \u00a0unknowns at play. And no one knows what causes type 1 diabetes, let alone why it’s increasing. What I do know is I wouldn\u2019t wish this burden on anyone, even if it\u2019s manageable, so I hope we figure out why rates of are increasing and put a stop to it.<\/p>\n

Over the course of a decade the SEARCH study looked at 11,245 youths (0 to 19 years old) with type 1 diabetes and 2846 young people (10 to 19 years old) with type 2 diabetes from five study centers across the USA. According to Pharmabiz<\/a>, \u201cThis study is the first ever to estimate trends in new diagnosed cases of type 1 and type 2 diabetes in youth (those under the age of 20), from the five major racial\/ethnic groups in the U.S.: non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks, Hispanics, Asian Americans\/Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bioscience Technology<\/a> reported that, \u201cThe cohort included youth from seven counties in Southern California, all of Colorado as well as selected American Indian reservations in Arizona and New Mexico, all of South Carolina, eight counties in Ohio, and five counties in Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the study results, \u201cAfter adjustment for age, sex, and race or ethnic group, the relative annual increase in the incidence of type 1 diabetes was 1.8% and that of type 2 diabetes was 4.8%.\u201d The fastest rise was seen among racial\/ethnic minority groups.<\/p>\n

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Key diabetes findings from the report<\/a><\/h2>\n