The National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched a nationwide consortium to address the rise in youth diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
According to a press release, NIH expects that trend — which it observed over the past two decades — to continue moving forward. It aims to advance understanding of the biologic, social, and environmental drivers of youth-onset type 2 diabetes.
NIH says it hopes to determine which children are at the highest risk for developing type 2 diabetes. It wants to find ways to better prevent, screen for and manage the condition in young people.
“Our children who are overweight or have obesity are at risk, but we don’t know how best to identify the children who will progress to type 2 diabetes,” said Dr. Rose Gubitosi-Klug, study lead, and chief of pediatric endocrinology at Case Western Reserve University/Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, Cleveland. “This study will bring us closer to our goal of prevention of type 2 diabetes in future generations of youth.”
More about the NIH-funded study
NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) funds an observational study as part of this effort. This builds on previous NIDDK-funded research indicating the challenges in treating youth-onset type 2 diabetes. Additionally, NIH said the condition progresses more aggressively than adult-onset type 2 diabetes.
Youths with type 2 diabetes struggle to achieve good blood glucose control, while the pancreas’ ability to secrete insulin declines more rapidly. Many in this population also don’t respond well to metformin, the drug most commonly used as a first-line treatment for diabetes in adults, NIH said. Youth-onset type 2 diabetes is also associated with earlier development of complications like damage to the eyes, kidneys and nerves.
“These factors all create a picture of a disease that is much more aggressive in youth than in adults, but we don’t understand what drives these differences,” said Dr. Barbara Linder, the NIDDK program director who is overseeing the study. “Consequently, young people are developing devastating complications of the disease during what should be the most productive years of their life.”
The study aims to identify unique drivers of youth-onset type 2 diabetes and distinguish it from the disease in adults. NIH expects study sites to recruit 3,600 participants between 9-14 years old at risk for developing type 2 diabetes. They must have started puberty, have overweight or obesity, and have high-normal to above-normal hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) levels but not high enough for a diagnosis of diabetes.
NIH said the research team wants input from people with lived experience of type 2 diabetes as well for both study design and concept. The team wants to gather data to understand social and environmental factors contributing to health disparities and poor outcomes, too.
“Most children we currently consider ‘at-risk’ for developing type 2 diabetes will not actually do so, so we need to better understand what factors define who is at risk and would benefit from targeted prevention strategies,” said Linder. “These efforts are critical to lessen the immense burden, not just on young people and their families, but also the U.S. healthcare system, arising from the growing numbers of youth living with this disease and its debilitating complications.”
