Research Urged As Cases Of Diabetes In Children Surge 500% In 20 Years

The number of young children in Britain being diagnosed with the most serious form of diabetes has increased five-fold in two decades, prompting calls for urgent research to identify the cause.

A conference in Glasgow yesterday heard that the number of under-fives with type-1 diabetes has soared in the past 20 years.

A study of 2.6 million people found that in 1985 there were 0.2 diabetes cases per 1,000 youngsters under five, but by 2004 this had risen to one case per 1,000 children. The research, presented at the Diabetes UK Annual Professional Conference, also found that type-1 diabetes in under-15s almost doubled during the study carried out in Oxford – from 2.5 cases per 1,000 to 4.2.

The researchers from Bristol University said the reasons behind the steep rises were unclear, with more work needed to find out what was happening. Professor Polly Bingley said: “The incidence of childhood Type-1 diabetes has been shown to be increasing all over Europe, particularly in the very young.

“The increase is too steep to be put down to genetic factors, so it must be due to changes in our environment. This could either mean that we are being exposed to something new, or that we now have reduced exposure to something that was previously controlling our immune responses. We now need to work to identify what these changes might be.”

It is suspected that an environmental trigger, such as an unidentified virus stimulating an immune attack against the cells of the pancreas, could be one of the causes of type-1 diabetes.
It is possible that such triggers affect people with a genetic susceptibility to diabetes.

The number of people with diabetes in Scotland has risen from about 120,000 in 2003 to 173,000 today. Around 20 per cent of these have type-1 diabetes, which is most commonly diagnosed in children aged ten to 14. Type-2 diabetes is more common in the over-40s and has been linked to obesity.

Experts predict that by 2010, another 40,000-50,000 Scots will have diabetes. The condition occurs when the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas are destroyed.

Simon O’Neill, the director of care, information and advocacy services at Diabetes UK, said the latest study had produced some “very interesting results”. He added: “The evidence of a steep rise of type-1 diabetes found in the under-fives indicates that the peak age for diagnosis of the condition in the UK is becoming younger. While ten to 14-year-olds remain the largest group for diagnosis, the rise in cases found in children under five is worrying.”

Libby Dowling, the care adviser for Diabetes UK, said looking after young children with diabetes was “very challenging”. She added: “They tend not to like routine, and giving injections and taking blood samples from a young child is not easy. It can have a devastating effect on families.” Ms Dowling said it was essential that the NHS made sure specialist paediatric teams were available to treating growing number of diabetic children.