Number of US youths with diabetes likely to increase in upcoming decades
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Researchers hypothesize that the number of youths in the U.S. with diabetes is likely to substantially increase in future decades, highlighting the need for diabetes prevention, according to estimates published in Diabetes Care.
“In particular, the risk of type 2 diabetes seems worrying because compared with youths and young adults with type 1 diabetes, those with type 2 diabetes have a worse cardiovascular risk profile and increased risk of complications and mortality,” Thaddäus Tönnies, MD, an epidemiologist at the Institute for Biometrics and Epidemiology at the German Diabetes Center in Düsseldorf, Germany, and colleagues wrote. “Furthermore, health disparities in type 2 diabetes prevalence might further increase in the future as a result of heterogenous trends in incidence.”
Researchers assessed data from the SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth study from 2002 to 2017 and estimated future type 1 and type 2 diabetes prevalence among youths aged 20 years or younger in the U.S. The SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth study included 3.6 million youths, with 7,759 with prevalent type 1 diabetes and 1,230 with prevalent type 2 diabetes.
The mean annual number of incident diabetes cases observed in this study between 2002 and 2017 was about 1,100 for type 1 diabetes and about 300 for type 2 diabetes among 5 million youths who were at risk each year.
Based on this study, researchers estimate an increase in the number of youths with diabetes from 185,000 with type 1 diabetes and 28,000 with type 2 diabetes in 2017 to a projected 191,000 with type 1 diabetes and 48,000 with type 2 diabetes by 2060 if the increase in incidence is constant with 2017 trends. These increases translate to a 3% increase in type 1 diabetes prevalence and a 69% increase in type 2 diabetes prevalence.
If the increasing trends in diabetes incidence observed between 2002 and 2017 persist, researchers project the number of youths with diabetes will be 306,000 for type 1 diabetes and 220,000 for type 2 diabetes. These increases translate to a 65% increase in type 1 diabetes prevalence and a 673% increase in type 2 diabetes prevalence.
According to the researchers, it is also likely for substantial widening of racial and ethnic disparities in type 2 diabetes prevalence to occur, with the highest diabetes prevalence observed among non-Hispanic Black youths.
“If the current trends continue, U.S. health care systems could face an increasing demand of youth-onset diabetes health care services, resulting in increasing health care costs,” the researchers wrote.
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