Type 2 Diabetes Can Harm Childrens Brains

Fri, 06 Aug 2010
Obese teenagers with blood sugar disease fared worse on cognition tests than non obese teenagers.

A small study of obese teenagers highlights that diabetes can strike the brain early in life, showing how obese children with Type 2 Diabetes can suffer from thinking difficulties which are absent in non-diabetic overweight kids.

It is evident from the findings that in diabetics potential brain damage can develop from a young age.

Type 2 diabetes is often triggered by excess weight, which constitutes around 40 percent of cases of childhood diabetes .

Children were far more likely to have type 1 diabetes, or juvenile diabetes . However, the increase in obesity amongst children has hugely boosted the number of type 2 diabetics .

The researchers tested obese, diabetic kids and non diabetic kids, discovering that obese diabetic teens scored lower than the others in reference to memory, attention and planning. In addition, they scored lower on IQ tests.

It is considered possible for diabetes to affect the way in which vessels transport blood to the brain.

The good news is that it appears these effects fade once type 2 diabetes disappears, he said, suggesting how important it is to help obese kids

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