According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), more than 200,000 children and teenagers under 20 years received a diagnosis of either type 1 diabetes or type 2 diabetes in the United States in 2017.
We are definitely experiencing a world-wide epidemic of diabetes. While I also think food is one of the primary drivers of this rising prevalence of diabetes, I will be more specific. Processed foods including things like high fructose corn syrup is likely also one of the factors.
I also believe that the demonization of dietary fat and it’s false connection with heart disease adversely affected public health. If you look at the incidence of diabetes and obesity over the last 50 years you can see that they climb steadily as we starting buying low-fat everything combined with all the processed convenience foods.
When I was growing up in the 1950’s and '60’s many families only ate at mealtime. Snacking was not a thing. Unfortunately, that value did not prevail. As I grew older I adopted the habit of regularly eating between meals. We never give our metabolism a rest excpet when we sleep. Even then, eating a late dinner encumbers our sleep with several hours of digestion.
I think we can reverse this alarming trend in diabetes but it will take some serious work. People emotionally defend any suggestion to change the way they eat. We have our work cut out for us. I fear things will get worse before they get better.
I agree with you completely, Terry4. But all the gloom and doom keeps me from clicking on a like. Unfortunately, I must add to the negativity by emphasizing the environmental toxins that everyone encounters from birth to death… in air, water and, ironically, the cosmetics we slather on, including sunscreens, moisturizers, soaps and enhancement cosmetics such as lipsticks and nail polish. None of this stuff we put on our skin needs to be approved by the FDA. Cosmetics have always been “self-regulated.” Yeah, sure… And did I mentioned plastics that wrap our food stuff?
I noticed the 200,000 doesn’t distinguish type 1 versus type 2 and I expect most of the increase is type 2. How many kids go out and bicycle all day as we did when we were young? I have to admit the computer would have been a huge draw for me if it was around then. Plus the more kids learn about use on a computer (versus just constant game playing) the better off they probably are in the modern world. But there were probably more “type 2” kids before as they probably weren’t as easy to label it type 2 for a kid.
Times have certainly changed. We were never inside when I was growing up. If you told a kid today to go outside and dig a hole, they’d think you were nuts.
Thanks for posting this. I was aware of the T2 increase, but was surprised about T1.
I looked at a couple papers on the subject and it is alarming. Lots of ideas on what might be behind it, but I didn’t see anything that stood up to testing and some couldn’t be tested. One particularly disheartening fact is the shift in onset age toward younger kids as time goes on.
Sure hope we find a cure for this disease, or better yet, a way to prevent it.
