Diabetes care
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This review considers the epidemiologic evidence of an increasing incidence of type 2 diabetes in youth, the classification and diagnostic issues related to diabetes in young populations, pathophysiologic mechanisms relevant to the increasing incidence, the role of genetics and environment, and the community challenge for prevention and treatment. Type 2 diabetes in youth has been recognized to be frequent in populations of native North Americans and to comprise some 30 percent of new cases of diabetes in the 2nd decade of life, largely accounted for by minority populations and associated with obesity. Among Japanese schoolchildren, type 2 diabetes is seven times more common than type 1, and its incidence has increased more than 30-fold over the past 20 years, concomitant with changing food patterns and increasing obesity rates. ⋯ The emerging epidemic of type 2 diabetes in the pediatric population, especially among minorities whose proportion in the U. S. population is increasing, presents a serious public health problem. The full effect of this epidemic will be felt as these children become adults and develop the long-term complications of diabetes.
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Recently, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) has proposed revised diagnostic criteria for diabetes. Lowering of the fasting plasma glucose (FPG) cutoff value is intended to reduce the discrepancy with the 2-h plasma glucose (PG) cutoff value and to encourage the use of FPG. We have applied these new criteria to data collected from a population-based prevalence survey in Hong Kong Chinese subjects of working age. ⋯ Compared with the WHO criteria, the use of FPG to diagnose diabetes, as recommended by the ADA, was a more reproducible test and identified those subjects who had a greater degree of hyperglycemia. Although lowering of the cutoff value from 7.8 to 7.0 mmol/l increased the number of diagnoses among subjects with low FPG, the omission of the 2-h PG would lead to fewer subjects having their diabetes diagnosed.
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Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical Trial
Influence of glucagon-like peptide 1 on fasting glycemia in type 2 diabetic patients treated with insulin after sulfonylurea secondary failure.
Glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) has glucose-dependent insulinotropic and glucagonostatic actions in type 2 diabetic patients on diet and on oral agents. It is not known, however, whether after secondary sulfonylurea failure, GLP-1 is still effective. ⋯ It is concluded that exogenous GLP-1 effectively lowers plasma glucose concentrations in advanced type 2 diabetes long after sulfonylurea secondary failure. These findings may broaden the applicability of GLP-1-derived drugs as a new treatment to nearly all type 2 diabetic patients.