Puzzling increase in diabetes in children

Significant increase in diabetes in children is a mystery

17/11/2013

In Germany, the number of children and adolescents suffering from type 1 diabetes has increased dramatically in recent years. Around 30,000 adolescents are already affected. The reason for this is puzzles.

Diabetes not only in overweight and elderly people
Many people automatically think of overweight or elderly people in the word diabetes. But unlike Type 2, Type 1 diabetes is not related to obesity and unhealthy eating habits. And even small children get sick more and more. Nationwide, around 30,000 children and adolescents aged 0 to 19 suffer from type 1 diabetes. The German Diabetes Aid warns that about 2,100 to 2,300 children aged up to 14 years would be added each year. In this disease, the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas are destroyed by their own immune system.

Rise is a mystery
This rapid increase in childhood diabetes is a mystery. „Still, researchers have not been able to fully clarify which factors trigger this fatal defense reaction“, explains the German Diabetes Society. Infections could potentially play a role. Also Thomas Danne, chief physician at the children and youth hospital on the Bult in Hanover and chairman of diabetesDE - German diabetes help, said to the news agency „dpa“ in the run-up to the past World Diabetes Day: „Why the type 1 diabetes increases - for the answer you can still win a Nobel Prize.“ In comparison to five years ago, more than twice as many children and adolescents in Germany now suffer from it.

Rising numbers also in Austria and Switzerland
Also in the neighboring countries it does not look better. So rises according to the newspaper „20 minutes“ the number of sick children in Switzerland is also surprisingly fast. And in Austria there are more and more young diabetics. „In the past 20 years, the incidence rate of type 1 diabetes has more than doubled in children and adolescents“, Pediatrician Karl Zwiauer, Head of the Child and Youth Department at the St.Pölten State Hospital in Austria. „That is worrisome. All the more so as we can not do anything about it because we do not know why the numbers have risen so much.“

Increase also in type 2 diabetes
In contrast to type 2, overweight and lack of exercise did not play a role in type 1 diabetes. Even with type 2, the number of sufferers at young age is steadily increasing. The data from the current Diabetes Atlas show that the number of sufferers in Germany increased in the years 2008 to 2012 in total by 14 percent. The states with the highest diabetes incidence in the population are Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and the Saarland. (Ad)