Title: Obesity in Children Quadruples Their Risk of Type 2 Diabetes
Headings: Obesity in Children Quadruples Their Risk of Type 2 Diabetes
Obesity in Children Quadruples Their Risk of Type 2 Diabetes
Type 2 Diabetes Rising in Parallel With Obesity

Content: Obesity in Children Quadruples Their Risk of Type 2 Diabetes
News > Medscape Medical News
Obesity in Children Quadruples Their Risk of Type 2 Diabetes
April 26, 2017
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Children who are obese have a fourfold increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared with their normal-weight counterparts, UK investigators have found in an electronic health record study. Examining data on more than 350,000 children, the researchers determined that although the number of type 2 diabetes cases remains relatively low in comparison with type 1 diabetes in children, the incidence of the former has risen markedly in recent years, to a rate of more than 33 per 100,000 children in 2013, and is a strongly associated with obesity. The research was published online on April 25 in the Journal of the Endocrine Society, an open-access journal introduced in January this year. Speaking to Medscape Medical News, lead author Ali Abbasi, MD, PhD, from the department of primary care and public-health sciences, King's College London, United Kingdom, said that it is important that general practitioners, family doctors, and society at large are aware of these trends. This represents "an important public-health message," he stressed, adding: " We have to invest in…research projects to understand the trends, including trends in obesity, in this generation of children and how we should prioritize prevention and interventions in the future." Although recent studies have suggested that approximately one-third of children in the United Kingdom are overweight or obese, there has been little study of the association between obesity and temporal trends in the incidence of diabetes in this age group. In the United States, a recent analysis of private healthcare insurance claims data showed that the number of children and adolescents diagnosed with type 2 diabetes has more than doubled in recent years, and the increase appears to be coincident with a rise in obesity rates. Type 2 Diabetes Rising in Parallel With Obesity
Dr Abbasi and colleagues therefore examined medical health records from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) database, comprising 375 primary-care practices in England. Specifically, they collected demographic data on individuals aged 2 to 15 years who had their body mass index (BMI) measured between 1994 and 2013, alongside any diagnosis of diabetes more than 12 months after the start of an individual's CPRD record.