Insulin-requiring diabetes up in young children: study

Researchers whose work appeared in the journal Diabetes Care found that the number of Philadelphia children under 5 diagnosed with type 1 diabetes increased 70 percent in 2005 from 1985, when a registry of such patients was begun.

The number of diagnosed cases among all children up to age 14 rose by 29 percent.

"Why are we seeing this large increase in type 1 diabetes in very young children? Unfortunately, the answer is we don't know," said lead author Terri Lipman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

Of the two most common forms of diabetes, type 2 typically affects adults who can still produce insulin, but whose bodies cannot use the hormone to regulate blood sugar. Type 1, previously known as juvenile diabetes, typically strikes children whose immune systems have killed off insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.

The disease is usually fatal if left untreated.

In 1985, according to a registry of Philadelphia children diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, 13.4 out of every 100,000 children in Philadelphia was newly diagnosed with the disease. In 2004, the rate was 17.2 cases per 100,000.

Type 1 diabetics must take insulin, but many type 2 diabetics can control the disease with medications, diet and exercise.

Type 1 diabetes tends to start in adolescence, but experts said

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