How common is diabetes in children? And are ways to prevent this disease from happening?

Renee Neltner

Diabetes amongst children is actually not too common, but in the past 30 years, the cases of childhood diabetes has increased threefold. There are variations of occurrence rates around the world, and they are as follows:

• England and Wales have about 17 per 100,000 children diagnosed per year.
• Scotland has 25 per 100,000
• Finland has 43 per 100,000
• Japan has 3 per 100,000

 Type 1 diabetes is the most common type of diabetes in children, by far. Of the total amount of cases, 90-95% of them are type 1. The majority of the children that have type 1 diabetes don't have a family history of diabetes. Type 1 is called Insulin-Dependent diabetes or Juvenile Diabetes and cannot be prevented.

Type 2 diabetes is called Non-Insulin-Dependent Diabetes or Adult-Onset Diabetes and there are preventative steps that can be taken. This type of diabetes is caused by metabolic syndrome, obesity, and bad diet, and since these things are occurring more frequently in our society, where type 2 used to be extremely rare in children, we are starting to see an increase in these incidences.

Sources:
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/children-and-diabetes.html
http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/diseases/facts/diabeteschildren.htm
http://kidshealth.org/parent/diabetes_center/diabetes_basics/type1.html