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When Type 1 and Type 2 Are Mouthed By Babes ...

by Medindia Content Team on Dec 7 2006 4:04 AM

With the increasing number of children pronounced as juvenile diabetics, it is not surprising that parents are a paranoid lot, dreading such diseases on their little ones. What used to be a malady of the middle aged and elderly is silently attacking children, and it is imperative that parents and doctors recognize the symptoms early, lest matters go out of hand.

New data from the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) corroborates this unhealthy trend of type I diabetes, also called early onset diabetes, gripping many children. Statisticians in their effort to size-up the disease into numbers, give us a clue into the lives of the 70,000 children below 15 years who are virtually tied down due to this disease. The developing and developed countries portray shameful statistics of children coming down with type 2 diabetes as early as eight years old.

Francine Kaufman, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Southern California medical school, said 'Diabetes has become a chronic and common disease among children ... and often these children die.' The escalating scenario of childhood diabetes is just a tip of the ice berg, scientists opine, akin to a dormant volcano, waiting to erupt, with the potential to consume nearly 400 million people across the globe, barely twenty years from now.

Most people have the answers to this sad twist in the saga, attributed to sedentary lifestyles of children, convenient smart homes, fat laden food , which is common to most households. Parents will need to be cautious and watchful of early symptoms which could show up as excessive thirst, or fatigue, which needs to be checked by a specialist without delay. Both types of diabetes are extremely dangerous for children and if undetected can even turn fatal.

Source-Medindia
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