KINGSTON, Jamaica, March 29 (UPI) -- Nearly 19 percent of Jamaican youth are considered obese, and 20 percent of diabetic youth have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, not type 1, a study found.
In America, adolescents diagnosed with type 2 diabetes are generally between 10 and 19 years old, obese, have a family history of type 2 diabetes and are insulin-resistant. But there is no rule to differentiate the types of childhood diabetes, according to study author Marshall Tulloch-Reid, an endocrinologist at the Clinical Research Program at the Heart Institute of the Caribbean in Kingston.
Tulloch-Reid presents criteria that can be used to identify patients who may have type 2 diabetes, which is the first profile of youth-onset type 2 diabetes from the English-speaking Caribbean.
The findings help confirm the "obesity epidemic" is not just an American problem, and it is becoming a major public health challenge in the developing world.
Tulloch-Reid and colleagues at The University of the West Indies and the Kingston Public Hospital are scheduled to present the research at the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists 16th annual meeting and clinical congress, held April 11 to 15 in Seattle.
Type 2 diabetes was once seen almost exclusively in middle-aged and elderly adults.
