Complications seen burdening type 2 diabetic kids

NEW YORK, May 26 (Reuters) Children and adolescents with type 2 diabetes, like adults, are at risk for developing complications from the disease.

However, these complications are expected to develop earlier in young patients, experts say.

Given the rise in childhood cases of diabetes because of the obesity epidemic, this finding suggests there'll be ''serious public-health challenges in the next few decades.'' There is also concern that children and teens with type 2 diabetes will be more prone to complications due to poor adherence to treatment, write Dr Orit Pinhas-Hamiel, from Sheba Medical Center, Ramat-Gan, Israel, and Dr Philip Zeitler, from the University of Denver, in a review published in The Lancet medical journal.

In the last 15 years, the prevalence of type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents rose dramatically. Previously, type 2 diabetes accounted for just three per cent of all cases of diabetes diagnosed in adolescents, but now it is responsible for 45 per cent of cases.

The authors of the report say that type 2 diabetes complications are already being seen, including high blood pressure, impaired kidney function, and early eye damage.

They found that in most cases the complications were being detected at the time diabetes was diagnosed.

In addition to the well known complications of the disease, children and adolescent with type 2 diabetes were at heightened risk for psychiatric disorders, according to findings from one of the studies reviewed. Roughly one in five children with diabetes experienced depression or another disorder.

Type 2 diabetes in adolescents also takes a toll on pregnancy outcomes. In a Canadian study, girls with the disease had a very high pregnancy loss rate -- 38 per cent.

''These findings, although still limited, suggest that we urgently need to develop approaches to awareness and early management of type 2 diabetes and associated abnormalities,'' the authors emphasize.

REUTERS SM VV0858