Study Compares Youth With Type 1, Type 2 Diabetes and Complications Rates
Teens and young adults with Type 2 diabetes develop complications related to it more often than do those with Type 1 diabetes, research shows. Researchers found that while groups often develop kidney, nerve, or eye diseases, but at differing rates of risk. The study is part of the SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth study.
SEARCH is a combined study funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers examined how quickly and how often youth developed signs of kidney, nerve, and eye disease and measured risk factors for heart disease.
Youth with Type 2 diabetes are much more likely to develop kidney, nerve disease.
Of the youth in the study with Type 2 diabetes, about 20 percent developed a sign of kidney disease within the eight years of the study. Compared to about six percent of those with Type 1 diabetes.
Similarly, about 18 percent of Type 2 diabetic youths developed nerve disease and about 9 percent with Type 1 did.
Youth with Type 2 diabetes slightly more likely to develop eye disease, about even for heart disease.
The study found that youths with Type 2 diabetes developed eye disease about 9 percent of the time versus about 6 percent with Type 1. A look at risk factors for heart disease found only slight differences between diabetic types. Type 2 diabetic youths are a bit more likely to develop hypertension and arterial stiffness, but not for cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy.
“There’s often the assumption that young people don’t develop complications from diabetes, but that’s just not true. We saw that young people with diabetes are developing signs of major complications in the prime of their lives,” said Dr. Barbara Linder, a study author and senior advisor for childhood diabetes research within the NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).
Source: NIH.gov