Surge in younger victims as people get fatter
THE number of young adults diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes has surged by a third since the start of the century, because people are getting fatter, a study has found.
Around one in eight new cases in the UK is aged between 18 and 40, compared to one in 10 in 2000.
Young- onset diabetes is more aggressive than diabetes acquired at an older age, according to researchers at Leicester University and Melbourne University in Australia. Their findings have lead clinicians to call for more intense strategies, including “proactive screening”, to reduce the risk of young people becoming diabetic.
The proportion of 18 to 40- yearolds contracting diabetes increased from 9.5 per cent to 12.5 per cent from 2000 to 2017. The group also had significantly higher BMI, blood sugar levels and worse cholesterol.
And while 44 per cent of newly diagnosed people aged 70 to 79 were obese, the proportion was 71 per cent for those aged 18 to 40.
Professor Sanjoy Paul, from Melbourne University, explained: “While cardiovascular morbidity and mortality risks have declined substantially over the years for older people with Type 2 diabetes, they remain unchanged for younger people.”
Professor Paul’s team used UK primary care medical records and identified 370,854 people with Type 2 diabetes from January 2000.
They aimed to uncover how the proportion of people being diagnosed had changed according to age.
Professor Paul said: “More intense strategies are required. Younger people have very high levels of cardiometabolic risk including high blood sugar, body weight and lipids.
“Proactive screening for diabetes in young people is of utmost importance.”