Children as young as seven are being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, which is usually associated with the middle-aged and elderly, because of increasingly unhealthy lifestyles, specialists warn today.
Too many have hardly heard of the disease, or believe it is just a “mild” condition, according to a panel convened by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) to provide new advice on preventing it.
Type 2 diabetes, in which the body gradually loses its ability to produce insulin and tolerate high glucose levels, used to be called ‘mature onset’ diabetes.
But panel members said that label could no longer be used due to growing numbers of youngsters being diagnosed with it.
Christine Coltrell, a diabetes nurse specialist from Warwick, said: “We are even getting children as young as seven with Type 2 diabetes, and that can have devastating long term health consequences.
“These children end up having heart attacks, or losing a limb, or their sight, in their 30s and 40s.”
All these children were seriously obese, she said, but the lifestyle problem which caused them were endemic.
“When we look at the way we are living our lives now, there’s lots of fast and processed foods on offer,” she said.
“People don’t walk their children to school any longer, they drive them.”
Kamlesh Khunti, professor of primary care at Leicester University and a GP, said a study of secondary school children in the city showed 40 per cent were spending four hours or more every evening, sitting down.
At the moment the number of under 16s diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in Britain is low: only about 300 a year.
But he warned: “Unless we do something about it, it’s going to get worse. In the US, something like 40 per cent of referrals to paediatric clinics are for Type 2 diabetes.”
2 comments:
This is extremely worrying, or should be, something urgently needs to be done. I do think our life style over the years has changed and perhaps not for the better. Old fashioned views or not I was bought up on three square meals a day as my parents used to call them, sweets were a once a week treat and excercise was daily. We walked to school, we played in the park after school, we went to dance classes and were fortunate to have a garden to play in. Living is different now with mums working, running children to school by car, perhaps not so many home prepared fresh foods. The world we live in is not ideal, has it ever been,? BUT we owe it to the children to do better than this for them.
Grace
I am with you on this one Grace and can recognise everything you say in your comment.
We do owe it to our children and grandchildren to try our hardest to do better for them.
Sheila
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