U of A researchers tackling diabetes in children

Researchers from the University of Alberta are part of a team working to develop a new diabetes treatment, something they say is especially needed for children battling the condition.

“It's not exactly equivalent,” said Dr. Andrea Haqq of Type 2 diabetes in children compared to adults.

“The type that we're seeing in kids and adolescents seems to be a more aggressive form of Type 2 diabetes as opposed to in adults.”

Haqq, a professor in the U of A's Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, along with PHD candidate Qiming Tan are among seven authors of a paper published in the medical journal Frontiers in Endocrinology in March.

It outlines their efforts to identify combinations of drugs and non-pharmaceutical therapy to personalize treatment in patients with obesity and diabetes.

The drug combinations control metabolic hormones that stimulate the body to produce and use insulin while also suppressing appetite to control blood sugars and reduce weight.

Manipulating those combinations, along with diet and lifestyle changes, could allow doctors to better customize treatment.

“Perhaps certain individuals might respond better to one therapy versus another, depending on their ethnic background or their sex, biological differences, for example,” she said.

Some drug combinations evaluated in the study have shown effectiveness in treating obesity in adults, with some reporting weight loss of between 10 and 15 per cent.

Haqq said researchers are working to determine if the same treatments will be equally effective in children.

“Those are the questions we are trying to answer,” she said. “You can't extrapolate data from the adults to be able to conclude anything conclusive in children and adolescents.”

Type 2 diabetes, when the body produces too little insulin or improperly uses it, was once only seen in adults, according to Diabetes Canada.

The group says it's become an increasingly common condition in teens and children in recent decades.

Federal data published last year showed about 2.3 million Canadians, including 247,000 Albertans, are living with diabetes.

The federal government estimates that about 90 per cent of diabetes cases among adult Canadians are Type 2.