Kids With Type 1 Diabetes Often Overweight

THURSDAY, July 2 (HealthDay News) — Children with type 1 diabetes are more likely to be overweight than those without the disease, increasing their risk of serious health complications, researchers say.

The finding is from a major study that explored the weight problems faced by U.S. youngsters with type 1 diabetes, a less common form of the disease that usually shows up in childhood or in young adults. The study, part of the “Search for Diabetes in Youth Study Group,” was reported online in the journal Pediatric Diabetes.


“The links between type 2 diabetes and excess weight are well documented, but are less clear in type 1,” said lead researcher Dr. Lenna Liu of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children’s Hospital, in a news release from the journal’s publisher.

“Knowing the prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and young people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes is very important as it helps us to identify those individuals — by age, gender or race/ethnicity — who face the greatest risk of the clinical complications associated with excess weight,” Liu added.

The researchers examined data from nearly 4,000 diabetic and more than 7,500 non-diabetic children and young people aged 3 to 19. The diabetic patients were evenly split between boys and girls and the group included various ethnic groups.

The study findings showed that, overall, approximately one in eight, or 13 percent, of type 1 diabetes patients were obese. Among black type 1 diabetes patients, 20 percent were obese, while roughly 17 percent of Hispanic and Asian/Pacific Islander patients were obese. White patients with type 1 diabetes had the lowest rate of obesity at 11 percent.

In type 1 diabetes, the body’s immune system attacks and destroys certain cells in the pancreas, an organ behind the stomach. Obese patients are at increased risk for heart disease and other serious complications.

More information

For more on diabetes, visit the American Diabetes Association.

— Peter West

SOURCE: Pediatric Diabetes, news release, June 22, 2009

Last Updated: July 02, 2009

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Stem Cell Transplant May Allow Type 1 Diabetics To Delay Insulin

TUESDAY, April 14, 2009 (Health.com) — A handful of people with type 1 diabetes have been able to survive without insulin shots for more than 2-1/2 years, on average, after having their own blood stem cells removed and reimplanted through intravenous injection, U.S. and Brazilian researchers reported on Tuesday.

Overall, the technique has been tried in 23 people, mostly boys and young men, who were treated within six weeks of a new diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. People who have type 1 diabetes,
an autoimmune disease that destroys the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, typically need insulin shots to survive. (People with type 1 make up only about 10% of all diabetics; most people have type 2, which can be controlled with diet, exercise, oral drugs, or insulin shots.)

After the transplant, 20 of the 23 patients became insulin free for at least a few months or even years. Twelve of them stayed free of insulin for an average of 31 months and eight patients had periods ranging from six to 47 months in which they were free from insulin.

One patient was free of daily insulin for more than four years before needing insulin shots, according to the report in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The stem cell transplants were performed at a single center in Brazil.

The new findings are “very encouraging,” says Richard K. Burt, MD, associate professor of medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, who presented the findings at a Washington press briefing. Still, he said, more study is needed before it’s known whether the treatment truly alters the course of the disease. “I never use the word ‘cure,’” says Dr. Burt, who is also chief of the Division of Immunotherapy and Autoimmune Diseases at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. “We just have to wait and see.”