Incidence of Type 1, Type 2 Diabetes Increasing in People Younger Than 20

FRIDAY, March 31, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- The incidence of type 1 and type 2 diabetes is increasing among children and young people aged 0 to 19 years, according to a study published in the April issue of The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.

Lynne E. Wagenknecht, Dr.P.H., from Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and colleagues identified children and young people aged 0 to 19 years with a physician diagnosis of type 1 or type 2 diabetes at five U.S. centers between 2002 and 2018 to describe the incidence during a 17-year period.

The researchers identified 18,169 individuals aged 0 to 19 years with type 1 diabetes in 85 million person-years and 5,293 individuals aged 10 to 19 years with type 2 diabetes in 44 million person-years. The annual incidence of types 1 and 2 diabetes was 22.2 and 17.9 per 100,000, respectively, in 2017 to 2018. A linear effect and a moving-average effect were captured in the model for trend, with a significant increasing linear effect observed for types 1 and 2 diabetes (2.02 and 5.31 percent, respectively). Greater increases in the incidence of both types of diabetes were seen for children and youth from racial and ethnic-minority groups such as non-Hispanic Blacks and Hispanics. The peak age at diagnosis was 10 and 16 years for type 1 and type 2 diabetes, respectively. Diagnoses of type 1 diabetes peaked in January, while type 2 diabetes diagnoses peaked in August.

"These findings will help guide focused prevention efforts," Wagenknecht said in a statement. "Now that we have a better understanding of risk factors, our next phase of research will be studying the underlying pathophysiology of youth-onset diabetes."

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