Development of diabetes in children

The most common form of diabetes in children is type 1 diabetes .The largest percentage of children being afflicted with diabetes have type 1 diabetes.

It evolves from inability of the pancreas to produce insulin. In Type 1 diabetes, the insulin beta cells which produce insulin in the pancreas are destroyed by the body’s immune system, resulting in little or no insulin production. When this happens, the sugar level in the bloodstream rises and if untreated, diabetes kills.

Type 1 diabetes is referred as an autoimmune disease and this is a condition where the body’s immune system attacks one of the body’s own tissues or organs. Children diabetes is not common and there are marked variations around the world. In the last 30 years there has been a threefold increase in the number of cases of childhood diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes has for the first time been seen in young people. This is more or less caused by the increasing obesity in affluent societies. Obesity does not explain the increase in figures seen in Type 1 diabetes in children who make up the majority of new cases diagnosed.

Causes of childhood diabetes

The cause of childhood diabetes is not properly understood but is likely to involve a mix of genes and environmental triggers. It is interesting that majority of children who develop Type 1 do not have a family history of diabetes.

Symptoms

The symptoms to watch for are the same as those in adults and they include:-

- Excessive thirst

- Unexplained weight loss

- being tired

- Frequent urination.

Symptoms seen only in children include:-

- Headaches

- Behavior problems.

- Tummy pains

Diabetic acidosis can occur before diagnosis and this is a life-threatening condition that can occur in people with type 1 diabetes but also sometimes can occur in people with type 2 diabetes.

This happens when a lack of insulin leads to:-

- High level of glucose in blood.

- ketones are detected in urine and blood

- Acids known as ketoacids are in the blood.

This condition needs immediate hospitalization for urgent treatment with fluids and intravenous insulin.

Diabetic acidosis can be avoided by proper treatment of Type 1 diabetes. Ketoacidosis can also occur in a well-controlled diabetes situation if you get a serious infection or other illness like stroke or heart attack which can cause vomiting and resistance to the normal dose of injected insulin.

Doctors consider the possibility of diabetes in any child who has unexplained history of illness or tummy pains for some time.

Treatment of diabetes in children.

Managing childhood diabetes is specialized and most children are cared for by hospitals rather than by their family doctors. Children with diabetes require individual insulin treatment routine which will be planned with the hospital diabetes team.

Commonly used are the frequent daily dosage regimes of fast-acting insulin during the day and slow-acting insulin at night. Toddlers do not need insulin injections at night although they will eventually need one as they grow older.

Today many children use continuous insulin pumps. In the first year after diagnosis your child will need a small dose of insulin. This is termed as the honeymoon period. It is important to practice good glucose control and avoid low blood glucose attacks. Complications of diabetes increase with the length of time the affliction has been present in the body.

Parent’s role.

Children have problems with:-

- Compliance with instructions

- Activity levels

- and diet restrictions

The immediate family and child’s hospital medical team can help. Diabetes can put families under a lot of strain and access to backup support is very important. This may be from social services, the hospital team or the family doctor…

To understand all the different aspects of diabetes and its treatment need patience but this will be of benefit to all of you.

The hospital diabetes team can help you with:-.

Learning how to administer insulin injections which are usually injected into the skin over the abdomen or the thighs. Knowing symptoms of low blood sugar including diabetic acidosis and what action to take. Glucose should always be available and within easy reach.

The child should be taught how to self administer insulin when old enough. There should be regular doctor visits as the treatment may require adjustment as the child grows.

Last but not least, the school the child attends and his or her friends need to know signs of low blood sugar and what action to take.

Diabetes is a dangerous disease when it is left undiagnosed and untreated. For such an easy disease to detect and to screen for, it is amazing the number of people whose diabetes goes undetected and so untreated.

First of all, there are two different types of diabetes that affect many things concerning treatment. Type 1 diabetes involves failure of the pancreas to produce insulin. Insulin is an important hormone that allows the body to convert sugars and starches into energy for the cells. Without it, the sugars stay in the blood stream and accomplish nothing. Type 2 diabetes, on the other hand, is much more common than Type 1 diabetes. It is the type of diabetes in which a person’s pancreas cannot produce enough insulin to keep up with demand or the body is no longer able to use the insulin produced by the body. Type 1 patients are much less common (roughly 10% of all cases) but are completely insulin injection dependent. Type 2 patients can generally control the disease through diet and lifestyle changes.

Diabetes is a very serious health condition. It is such a serious condition that the life expectancy of diabetics is approximately 10 years less than that of non-diabetics. This is because of the numerous complications that go hand in hand with diabetes. Coronary artery disease, peripheral vascular disease, blindness or vision loss, kidney problems, circulation issues, and loss of circulation in both the hands and feet are all common side effects of diabetes that has not been treated or managed properly.

Considering the dangers of not controlling diabetes, it is scary how many have diabetes undiagnosed. An individual with undiagnosed diabetes is an individual who has not been diagnosed by a doctor or physician but whose plasma glucose levels are well within the accepted criteria for diabetes. The United States is estimated to have an undiagnosed diabetes population of 2.7% of the entire adult population over the age of 20.

This percentage means that nearly 3% of the adult population are putting their bodies at risk by not having control of their diabetes because they have not had it diagnosed. A simple blood test is really all that is needed to determine if a person is diabetic or not. This is generally part of any general physical conducted on an adult, since blood tests can tell so much about a person’s overall health. The level of undiagnosed diabetics suggests that at least some blood tests are not being interpreted appropriately.

Insulin is a hormone produced by your pancreas whose primary function is to lower blood sugar. It does this by binding to insulin receptors on the cell wall which open glucose transporters. Once the glucose transporters are opened by the action of insulin, glucose can flow freely from the blood into the cell.

If you are insulin dependent your body relies on insulin injections in order to function correctly. This is either because your pancreas is not secreting any insulin, as in type 1 diabetes), or else the insulin that your pancreas is making is not doing its job properly, as in type 2 diabetes.

Insulin Basics

Before we jump into discussing the various insulin regimens, I need to first explain two terms which you will come across frequently:

Basal insulin - This is the injection of a long-acting insulin which mimics the insulin secretion of the pancreas. A single basal shot of insulin continues to act slowly throughout the day, therefore you only need to inject it once or twice daily. These long-acting insulins are “peakless” which means that they try and maintain the same glucose level throughout the day, unlike the fast acting insulins which result in a rapid decrease in blood sugar.

Bolus insulin - A bolus is a medical term for a single dose. Bolus insulin is given when you eat food in order to counteract the rapid increase in blood glucose after a meal. Bolus insulins are typically fast-acting, some of which start bringing down blood glucose in a matter of minutes. They do not remain in your system for long, being metabolized and excreted out of the body usually within a few hours.

So, to summarise… basal insulin keeps your blood sugar stable in the absence of food, but when you eat you need to take a bolus of fast acting insulin in order to counteract the sudden increase in blood sugar which comes from the breakdown of carbohydrate into glucose.

When Is Insulin Needed?

Insulin is always necessary for the treatment of type 1 diabetes, because there is a complete lack of the hormone in these patients. Type 2 diabetics do not usually require insulin until the disease has progressed to a point where the patient has become highly resistant to insulin, or when oral antidiabetic medications are no longer enough to keep blood glucose levels down.

A patient with insulin dependent type 2 diabetes has to use insulin in the same way as type 1 diabetics. However, there is a difference in that type 2 diabetics usually have to take much larger doses of insulin than type 1 patients because they have become so resistant to the effects of insulin.

For many type 2 diabetics, the addition of a long acting (basal) insulin such as Lantus or Levemir is usually enough to provide enough help to assist the body’s own insulin in doing its job. If this is still not effective enough, a basal dose can be taken in addition to fast acting boluses of insulin at mealtimes.

Insulin Mixtures

These come premixed under certain brand names, a popular one is a 70/30 mix (70% long acting, 30% fast acting) called humulin or mixtard. These are usually taken before breakfast and supper.

However, the combination of basal and bolus injections provides much tighter glucose control and is a more flexible system than taking premixed insulin. This is because you can vary the amount and timing of the bolus to match what type of food you eat and when you eat it.

With mixtures of insulin such as the 70/30 mix, you have to take it on a rigid schedule, and you can only eat a certain number of carbohydrates each day and at a scheduled time. You are not able to vary the timing of the injections because they contain both slow acting and fast acting insulin, and you are not able to eat more or less food depending on how hungry you are that day.

How to Inject Insulin

Depending on the insulin regime prescribed by your doctor, you may have to inject insulin via a traditional syringe. However, the majority of patients now are using injection pens which come pre-filled with insulin as they are much easier to use. In either case, the following basics apply:

Step 1: If using a syringe, roll the insulin vial (or the syringe itself if it has been pre-filled) between the palms of your hands a number of times before filling the syringe to redistribute any particles that may have settled to the bottom. This ensures an even concentration of insulin in each dose. The same applies to insulin pens, but they should also be shaken as most pens have a small glass ball inside which can move around and mix the insulin thoroughly.

Step 2: Choose an injection site and pinch the skin slightly. Position the syringe or pen so that the insulin is injected under the fatty layer of the skin. Note that a 45 degree angle is best for children and adults who are very thin, otherwise a 90 degree angle may be more appropriate.

Step 3: You should rotate your injection site regularly. Insulin is best absorbed through the abdominal area so rotating injection sites in this area is ideal. You could visualize your abdomen as a grid of 8 squares. Assign to each square a particular day and change to a new one each day of the week.

Insulin Injection Tips

1. Subsequent injections should be delivered at least 1 inch away from the previous injection site.

2. It is not necessary to disinfect the injection site with an alcohol swab as long as your skin is clean.

3. If necessary, insulin may be injected through clothing, but this is not recommended.

4. Never shake a vial of insulin as this creates air bubbles which can clog the syringe.

5. Never mix one type of insulin with another in a single syringe. This can make it’s effects erratic.

6. Try not to inject insulin into muscle tissue. It is painful and the insulin is absorbed too quickly and cause hypoglycemia.

Insulin Pumps

Insulin pumps are normally used in type 1 diabetes however they can work as effectively for insulin dependent type 2 diabetics also.

Some advantages of using an insulin pump include:

You change your infusion site once every 3 days, so if you have a dislike of needles, insulin pumping is better than having to inject yourself times a day.

You will use less insulin with a pump than on injections. Insulin pumps only use fast acting insulin which is more efficient than the slow acting types. Typically you use 20% less insulin when using a pump.

Because you have more control of the amount of insulin you take, if you are motivated, you can achieve much lower HbA1c (glucose average) than with injections. This improved control is due to the fact you can take doses that are not whole units, but fractions of a unit.

A new development in the area of insulin pumps is the advent of the artificial pancreas. This device combines an insulin pump with a continuous blood glucose meter, and automatically calculates how much insulin you need, minute by minute. This device is not currently on the market, but foundations such as the JDRF have invested a lot of money into it’s R&D. Human trials are currently underway.

Is an Insulin Pump Right For Me?

Not everyone is suited to pump therapy, and it usually reserved for cases of type 1 diabetes or insulin dependent type 2 diabetes. In order to be successful at using an insulin pump:

• You need to be good at counting carbohydrates. You have to manually program the pump with the number of carbohydrates you are going to eat. It then calculates the dose of insulin to give you.
• You need to be comfortable working with technology. If you are unable to basic devices such as a cell phone, then the insulin pump is not for you. However, as you are reading this information on your computer, this is likely not the case.
• You need to be patient in order to give the pump a chance to impress you. It usually takes at least a week or two before your glucose levels reach a healthy level. It will also be at least several more weeks after that before you become confidant with adjusting the device.
• You need to have a cool head rather than anxiety prone. When your glucose level starts to seem a little scary you have to quickly figure out what changes you need to make. Your doctor will be able to assist you with the learning curve at first, but you will eventually have to cope with the device on your own as the lag time between seeing a problem and getting help is too long for another person to control your pump for you.
• Finally, you must be willing to test your blood glucose level with a glucometer about 8 times per day and more often when you are making adjustments to your routine.

Of course you want to make sure your kids are safe.

Most symptoms of juvenile diabetes are very similar to early diabetes signs and symptoms in general. In most people, you’ll see high blood sugar effects in plenty of time to treat them

But sometimes not in kids.

That’s because they have no history of diabetes and you’re not expecting it to hit so young. So you can mistake it for something else and when it gets serious you must act quickly to keep your kids safe.

So what are the symptoms of juvenile diabetes?

Generally, they relate to starving cells for glucose at the same time that excess glucose builds up in the blood. I you Google type 1 diabetes symptoms, you’ll find lots of articles on it - frequent peeing and drinking, weight loss and wasting, weakness, and incessant hunger.

But some kids sometimes will experience very serious symptoms for diabetes. These come from ketone bodies building up in the blood and urine, leading to diabetic ketoacidosis.

And this, you must get help for at once.

How to recognize it: Your son will be hit with nausea, abdominal pain, and at times, vomiting. His blood will get thick like syrup. He’ll get drowsy and may fall unconscious. And if the situation isn’t corrected quickly, he may die. (If you ever have any question that this may be going on, call your doctor immediately).

The treatment is straightforward and uneventful when the problem is handled quickly.

The best course of action for you, is to never let your child get that advanced with symptoms of juvenile diabetes. The challenge with kids often is that they don’t want to follow the diet and exercise program you put them on.

It’s just not cool.

And peer pressure is more powerful than the specter of health problems for a young person.

Diabetes rates have risen sharply in the last decade, no doubt due to unhealthy eating habits, lack of adequate exercise, and stressful lifestyles which are so common in modern day life. The good news is that by making a few permanent lifestyle adjustments diabetes can actually be reversed naturally.

What is Diabetes?

Diabetes is a disease in which the body either does not make enough insulin or cannot efficiently use the insulin that it does produce or sometimes both. In Type 1 diabetes the body does not produce enough insulin, plain and simple. In Type 2 diabetes the body is not able to use the insulin as effectively as it should and sometimes the body does not produce adequate amounts of insulin as well. Since the vast majority of individuals with the disease have type 2 diabetes, that will be our focus. People who are overweight and inactive greatly increase their risk of developing the disease if they are genetically predisposed to the condition. So how can you reverse diabetes or reduce the likelihood of developing it?

Medications

For starters, you’ll want to continue taking all prescription medications until you’ve reversed the condition and been cleared by your doctor to do otherwise.

Monitor Your Blood Sugar Levels

It is crucially important to monitor your blood sugar levels. This not only gives you a starting point but it is an important tool in your learning process. Monitoring your blood sugar levels will help you determine which foods are raising your blood sugar level. You will soon get a feel for the foods that help you and the ones that hurt you by paying attention to these numbers.

Good Nutrition

The next thing you want to focus on is nutrition. A good diet and proper exercise helps you lose body fat and maintain muscle. Try to eat plenty of vegetables, fruit that is low in sugar, and good carbs such as brown rice and sweet potatoes.

Aim for 5 or 6 smaller meals per day and also try to include a bit of lean protein in these meals to maintain muscle and energy levels. You should also take a high quality multi-vitamin and mineral supplement daily.

Cardio Exercise

Getting regular cardiovascular exercise is a great way to help you lose weight and burn up some of the extra blood glucose that is circulating in your bloodstream. Since the body does not begin burning fat until you’ve exercised for at least 20 minutes, it’s a good idea to aim for longer 30-45 minute workouts to ensure that you burn fat. Cardio can be performed slowly or moderately as long as it is done with consistency as this is the key.

Walking, bicycling, treadmill, elliptical machine, and stair climber are all good forms of cardio routines.

Strength Training

Though not widely publicized but strength training can dramatically increase glucose uptake which is great news for diabetics and pre-diabetics.

Performing two strength training workouts per week can is enough to do the trick. Plus, the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn even when you’re doing nothing and that’s a good thing!

Strength training can be done with free weights, weight machines, resistance bands or a combination of these. Remember to use good form to avoid injury.

Always make sure to get sufficient rest in between your workouts.

Reverse Diabetes

By adopting proper eating habits along with regular exercise you can reverse diabetes or keep from getting it in the first place. It will require a bit of planning initially but once you know how to eat and exercise it will simply be a new lifestyle with tremendous health benefits!

I am an Insulin Dependent Diabetic, and have been so since I was in my early 20s. Until that time I had been a reasonably fit and quite healthy specimen. Unfortunately for me at that time, as a typical Australian male in the prime of my life, I refused to see a doctor, believing instead that what ever was wrong with me would pass. It wasn’t until my wife pressured me and then threatened to leave me that I decided to do something about it.

By this time I had lost so much weight I looked like a skeleton with a thin covering of skin. I was about 82.5Kg or 182 pounds and in a period of around 2 weeks I dropped to about 38Kg or around 84 pounds. Things got so bad for me that when I stood from sitting, I had to drag my left leg behind because it wouldn’t work for walking straight away. I was pretty sick! Anyhoo, I went into hospital for treatment and started learning how to manage this incredibly complex illness that had befallen me. For many years, I hated the world and got to a point where I felt I was owed something. Guess what?? I didn’t get it!

Slowly over time, I put weight back on and started to rebuild muscle. I still have troubles in my legs almost 20 years later. From day 1 it seemed that I would have nothing but trouble managing my blood glucose levels with the correct insulin regime. Doctors changed the types of insulin I was on 3 times before they found the one that seemed to work. Even then though I was still using a lot. I would take between 50 and 60 units of slow acting insulin in 2 injections every day, as well as nearly 80 units of fast acting insulin in 6 injections daily. I tell you it can get bloody annoying…

Then one day in early 2006, my best friend told me about this DIY health maintenance system that he’d been taught called 423 Meridian Qi Gong. He went on and on about it over the phone and told me how it worked. I must admit I was a little bit sceptical, but decided to give it a go anyway. Being the typical Australian male that I am, I decided to try it with only the limited instruction that I’d had over the phone. It didn’t matter, it worked anyway. That same day, within a few hours, my blood glucose levels dropped so severely that I kept going into a hypoglycaemic state. For the next week I used almost no insulin and the few times that I did inject, I had to keep checking my sugar levels to make sure I didn’t go too low.

It was amazing and even today 3 almost 4 years later my insulin requirements are less than half what they were. I still use the 2 types of insulin, slow acting morning and night, and the fast acting before? each meal. Except that I no longer need it for my afternoon tea break. These days though, I only use a maximum of 34 units of the slow acting insulin and? 40 - 50 units of the fast acting in only 5 injections per day.

On top of this with the continued use of 423 Meridian Qi?Gong, I have put on muscle and my health continues to improve steadily. I was so impressed with the results that I was only too?happy to assist in the filming of Professor Lius’?Home Study DVD?which is available at the Meridians For Health website and I have also been accredited by Professor Liu as an instructor.

423 Meridian Qi Gong consists of 4 Pressure Points, 2 Breathing Exercises and 3 Physical exercises. The pressure points are easy to find and won’t cause any pain. The breathing exercises are so easy, you do 1 before you get out of bed in the morning and the other one you can do anywhere. The physical exercises are low to no impact, and basically they are there just to get the energy system in your body pumping. If you are a diabetic and you find that nothing works to keep you in control, you owe it to yourself to have a look at 423 Meridian Qi Gong. You can buy the DVD at the Meridians For Health?website. You’ll find the link in my resource box.

As sugar is the substance of life, it is considered precious and, as an imperative, the body goes to large lengths to maintain it. The kidneys hold a natural barricade to prevent the loss of sugar in urine. However all the additional sugar in the bloodstream needs to go somewhere. Because of the disproportionate levels of sugar in the bloodstream of the diabetic, this kidney barricade is inundated, and sugar spills into the urine. To be excreted out in the right consistency, this spilled sugar needs to be in liquid form, so large amounts of water are pulled into the bladder, producing great volumes of urine. To meet this requirement you will be drinking almost all the time. All this creates the typical diabetes symptoms: excessive thirst, excessive urination, excessive hunger, weight loss (from burning muscle and fat to try and nourish the cells), among others.

WHY DID I BECOME DIABETIC?

No one knows for sure the causes of diabetes, even though there may be numerous contributory factors. Genetics is probably one, and fatness is another. On the whole, males are believed to be more prone to diabetes than females, and it is normally older people who develop the disease. Anyway, only your doctor can offer satisfactory diagnosis of symptoms and tell you whether they are in fact diabetes symptoms.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Diabetes symptoms progress according to the extent and range of high blood glucose levels. The symptoms may initially show very mild, then progress to more severe symptoms (i.e. excessive need for liquids and urination), and finally to the perilous life-threatening conditions of kidney failure or heart disease. The progression of symptoms is usually slow and steady over years for type 2 diabetes and quick over weeks or months for type 1 diabetes. Sufferers from type 2 diabetes frequently go undiagnosed long enough to make them start to get signs of the complications of the illness, such as foot or kidney problems.

Many people show no signs or symptoms. Diabetes symptoms may also be so soft that you might not still perceive you have them. Lots of people all over the world have type 2 diabetes and do not recognize it.

HOW CAN I TELL?

Diabetes symptoms to look for: increased hunger and thirst, fatigue, increased urination, inexplicable weight loss, blurry vision, sores that will not heal. At times people have symptoms but do not deduce diabetes. They postpone scheduling a health check for the reason that they do not feel bad. Many diabetics do not discover they have the disease until they have serious complications, such as kidney failure or heart trouble.

This is why it is imperative to detect early if you have diabetes: adequate treatment can prevent harm to the body at early stages. An early sign of kidney injure is when your kidneys give away small quantities of a substance called albumin into the urine. With additional damage, the kidneys leak growing amounts of albumin. This harm gets worse until the kidneys fall short or stop working. Quantities of people with diabetes feel “in bad condition” or have mild diabetes symptoms that may go unrecognized. Others have signs such as feeling thirsty, urinating frequently, losing weight, feeling tired, having blurred vision, getting skin infections, and having slow healing cuts and bruises. These tribulations should be reported to your physician right away.

In addition to the above information, it may be required to check up symptoms that may be caused by consequences of diabetes or other related conditions. To get a complete picture of these and other possible diabetes symptoms — there are plenty of them — you may want to download a complimentary ebook from the author.

Most people who have type 1 diabetes prefer using a pump over other methods of delivering insulin. A lot of diabetic experts suffering from diabetes prefer pumps over needles.

Here are five additional reasons that people who like the pump cite for using one:

• The pump delivers insulin to the body much like the pancreas does.
• One can adjust the amount of insulin by fractions of a unit and have many different amounts at different times of day. The insulin pump easily adapts to a patient’s lifestyle.
• Taking a larger dose before meals is as easy as pushing a button on the pump.
• One can be more flexible with meals because he’s constantly getting a small dose of insulin.
• That’s great news for today’s active youngsters. There’s less risk of hypoglycemia because you are getting small amounts of insulin at a time

On the other hand, here are five equally significant reasons that people don’t like to use an insulin pump:

• It’s much more expensive than conventional syringes and needles.
• The pump is visible, especially when one wears less clothing on hot days. Also, if there’s a blockage, an alarm goes off. Essentially, it makes diabetes more obvious to others.
• If the pump fails for any reason that doesn’t set off an alarm, such as a leak, one has so little insulin in his body that he may rapidly go into KETOACIDOSIS.
• You need to monitor his blood glucose more frequently, sometimes more than four times daily, to properly use the pump. And right now, monitoring still means finger sticks.
• The pump is attached to the body 24 hours a day, making sleeping and physical activities like sports less convenient.
• Pump wearers who engage in sex may find the pump inconvenient because it’s attached to the body.

Kids of all ages can use the insulin pump. Parents usually manage the pump until they feel the child can do it.

Insulin pump is best suited for those diabetic have the following characteristics:

• They’re highly motivated.
• They’re willing to stick themselves multiple times a day to check their blood glucose.
• They can afford the costs involved because many insurances pay only a part of the pump expenses.
• They understand how the pre-meal glucose and the carbohydrates about to be consumed are used to determine the insulin dose.
• They have a good understanding of the complications of diabetes, especially signs of ketoacidosis.

By keeping the above mentioned pros and cons, it will help the diabetics to to make a better descion.

Our bodies depend on glucose for energy. In order for the body to utilize the glucose, the cells of the body have to extract it from the blood. To do this they need a hormone known as insulin. Insulin is produced in the pancreas. If the pancreas does not produce sufficient insulin or if the cells of the body do not respond correctly to the insulin that is produced the level of glucose in the blood will increase because the glucose is not being absorbed by the body’s cells. The result is a disease called diabetes mellitus or more commonly diabetes.

The normal glucose level in the blood is from 65 to 120 milligrams per deciliter or (mg/dL). Under normal circumstances this balance is maintained in spite of a surge of sugar following eating a meal or snack or a few hours without sugar when one doesn’t eat, for example, at night while sleeping. However, when insulin is not produced or utilized normally, the balance is disrupted and glucose levels either rise too high or fall too low. There are three types of diabetes mellitus: Type 1, Type 2 and gestational diabetes.

The form of diabetes that is common to children is Type 1 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes usually affects adults over forty years of age although it can develop in children and this is now happening more often than in the past. Gestational diabetes is restricted to pregnant women. Type 1 diabetes is classified as an auto-immune disease. Because the immune system attacks the insulin producing cells of the pancreas, the body has less insulin available than is required. Type 1 may be genetic or it can be the result of a virus. Scientists are not sure about this. Both boys and girls are equally susceptible to Type 1 diabetes.

Scientists also do not understand why Type 2 diabetes is suddenly starting to affect children. However, they believe that this may be due to overweight and inactivity. Symptoms of diabetes in children include excessive thirst and urination, weight loss or failure to gain weight, fatigue and large appetite. Since treatment can be a lifetime procedure, it is important that parents and children work together to manage the diabetes. The child must learn the importance of checking and maintaining proper blood sugar levels. If insulin injections are required, the child must learn how to do this and must know the schedule for the injections.

Maintaining a proper diet is extremely important and this may be difficult with children. Parents can control what the child eats at home but away from home and in school is a different matter. Most young children are fond of sugar snacks such as candy and these need to be avoided. However, diabetic children can have sugarless candy. Diabetic children also need to eat on a regular schedule of meals interspersed with healthy snacks. In addition, they must follow a regular exercise program. Teachers and school administrators should always be advised if a child is diabetic and they need to be informed of medication schedules and diet.

Diabetes can be classified into two types: Type 1, or juvenile, diabetes, which is exclusively diagnosed in childhood, and Type 2, or adult-onset, diabetes which is nearly always diagnosed in adults.

Type 2 diabetes used to be considered an adult-only disorder. Until recently, children who were diagnosed with diabetes always or nearly always developed Type 1 diabetes. Increasingly, however, medical professionals are diagnosing children with Type 2 diabetes, normally found in adults.

What is behind this shift? Researchers suggest that lifestyle choices play crucial roles in whether or not a person will develop Type 2 diabetes. While lifestyle choices alone may not be sufficient to cause the disease, they do make its development more likely.

Being overweight is a major risk factor for development of Type 2 diabetes. More and more children are becoming overweight due to poor diet and inactivity. Accordingly, more and more children are at increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes due to being overweight or obese. Not all overweight children will become diabetic, but they are much more likely to become so than are children who are a normal weight.

There are other symptoms of or factors associated with Type 2 diabetes in children. These include:

Being over one’s healthy weight, as has been previously noted. Also, if a child has an immediate relative, especially a parent, who has Type 2 diabetes, their risk of developing the condition is increased.

Other symptoms, like constant thirst and a frequent need to urinate, are common to both types of diabetes. Feeling very lethargic, or tired all of the time, is also commonly reported as a symptom.

You don’t have to have typical symptoms to be diabetic, however. It is possible to have the condition and show few if any signs. Because of this, it is important that parents report family medical history to children’s physicians, especially whether any close relatives are diabetic.

At the doctor’s discretion, patients may be tested for diabetes even without symptoms, especially if there is a family history that suggests increased risk.