Childhood Obesity Quadruples Risk of Developing Type 2 Diabetes

Both obesity and diabetes are epidemic health problems. Obesity affects about 12.7 million children and teens in the United States. The SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth study found 3,600 cases of type 2 diabetes were diagnosed in U.S. children and teens each year between 2002 and 2005, according to the Endocrine Society’s Endocrine Facts and Figures report.

The researchers who published the Journal of the Endocrine Society study found a similar trend in a large-scale analysis of diabetes and obesity rates among British children.

“As the prevalence of obesity and being overweight has rapidly risen, an increasing number of children and young adults have been diagnosed with diabetes in the United Kingdom since the early 1990s,” said the one of the study’s authors, Ali Abbasi, M.D., Ph.D., of King’s College London in London, U.K. “A child with obesity faces a four-fold greater risk of being diagnosed with diabetes by age 25 than a counterpart who is normal weight.”