Millions of teens have prediabetes – study

About 2 million adolescents in the United States have prediabetes, a condition that often leads to diabetes, according to US health statistics.

Prediabetes, also called impaired glucose tolerance or impaired fasting glucose, is a condition in which glucose (blood sugar) is above normal but not high enough for a diagnosis of diabetes. Weight loss, exercise and diet can bring glucose levels back into normal range, or prevent prediabetes from escalating to type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes, once rare in children, has become more common in recent years because of the growing rate of obesity. Federal health researchers examined data from the 1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The nationally representative data covered 915 Americans ages 12 to 19 who had a glucose blood test after fasting for at least eight hours. The investigators found that 7 percent of adolescents in the study had prediabetes. Broken down by gender, about 10 percent of the boys and 4 percent of the girls had the condition. Weight played a significant factor in the survey, with about 17.8 percent of the overweight subjects having prediabetes. Race also played a role. About 13 percent of the Mexican Americans had prediabetes, as compared to 7 percent of the non-Hispanic whites and 4.2 percent of the non-Hispanic blacks. Adolescents with prediabetes also had greater risk factors for heart disease (higher blood pressure and unhealthier levels of cholesterol) and higher insulin levels than those with normal glucose. Pediatric prediabetes and type 2 diabetes have also become more common in recent years in other developed nations and in developing regions such as Latin America, India, China and Africa. (Source: Pediatrics: Heart Centre Online: Reuters Health: December 2005.)