Diabetes in children increasing with fast food lifestyle

Doctors are warning that diabetes could spread in the current generation of fat, couch-potato teenagers, putting more pressure on Britain's ailing healthcare system, reports Reuters.

Fast food, too much time in front of the television and computer and a lack of exercise are causing a rise in childhood obesity which could bring with it an increase in children of a type of diabetes normally found in adults.

Children are usually diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes which is caused by the body's failure to produce the hormone insulin which controls blood sugar levels and metabolism.

Type 2, or adult, diabetes is common in overweight and obese adults and is linked to other illnesses such as heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure.

But doctors at the Royal Hospital for Children in Bristol have reported the first cases of Type 2 diabetes in four white overweight adolescents in Britain.

Until now Type 2 diabetes had only been diagnosed in children from ethnic minorities in Britain, although the disease is becoming increasingly prevalent in adolescents in the United States and parallels a rise in childhood obesity.

"As far as we are aware, these are the first cases of type 2 diabetes described in white children in the UK, however, this phenomenon is likely to become increasingly common,"​ Dr Julian Shield, said in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood​.

The children, three girls and a boy, diagnosed with type 2 diabetes were aged between 13 and 15. All were overweight.

Type 2 diabetes can usually be treated by using diet, exercise or drugs to stimulate the secretion of insulin, which is produced by cells in the pancreas.

Shield and his colleagues said doctors should be aware of the risk of type 2 diabetes in white, as well as minority, children so they can be treated early which could delay complications from the illness later in life.