Children with Diabetes
Identifying Children with Diabetes:
The rate of beta cell destruction in type 1 diabetes is quite variable-rapid in some individuals (mainly infants and children) and slow in others (mainly adults). Children and adolescents may present with ketoacidosis as the first indication of the disease. Others may have modest fasting hyperglycemia that rapidly changes to severe hyperglycemia and/or ketoacidosis in the presence of infection or other stress.
Most children and adolescents diagnosed with type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese, insulin resistant, and have a family history of type 2 diabetes. They also may have physical signs of insulin resistance such as acanthosis nigricans. Diabetes complications such as microalbuminuria and the presence of cardiovascular risk factors such as abnormal.
Children and Teens with Diabetes:
The child with diabetes - with emphasis on the importance of monitoring blood glucose levels regularly and establishing healthy eating and exercise habits in your child, and answers to your questions about school and family issues. Type 2 diabetes in children and teenagers - this is a recent phenomenon that is not yet fully understood. The teenager with diabetes - adolescence brings its own special challenges to any family, and diabetes adds another layer to these trying years.
Talking to your child about diabetes:
The way you talk to your child about his diabetes will have a tremendous impact on how he perceives the disease, his body and himself. Avoid judgemental terms when describing food or blood glucose levels, For example, no single food should be described as “bad” or “junk”; rather, talk to your child about how food fits into a healthy lifestyle. Similarly, blood glucose levels are best described as “high, low or normal” rather than “good or bad.” Young children, especially, may attach to themselves the negative terms you use to describe their diabetes. By being positive and supportive, you help boost your child’s self-esteem at a time that it may be most threatened.
The Children’s Diabetes Foundation: at Denver was established by Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Davis in 1977 in Denver, Colorado as a non-profit organization dedicated solely to the support of research in childhood diabetes and to provide the best possible clinical and educational programs for children with this disease. The Foundation’s mission is to raise funds to support programs at the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes where more than 5,000 children and young adults from all over America currently receive care.
Why is it hard to detect the prevalence of type 2 diabetes in children?
It is hard to detect type 2 diabetes in children because it can go undiagnosed for a long time; because children may have no symptoms or mild symptoms; and because blood tests are needed for diagnosis. It is difficult to be sure it is type 2, because criteria for differentiating between types of diabetes in children are confusing; that is, children with type 2 can develop ketoacidosis (acid build-up in the blood); children with type 1 can be overweight; and because the overall prevalence of the disease may still be low. This means that scientists will have to sample a very large population of children in order to find a stable estimate of prevalence.
