UAE | Health
'I am seeing children as young as 10 with adult-onset diabetes'
Adult-onset diabetes, so called because it tends to affect older people, is becoming more common among children in the UAE, with doctors reporting patients as young as 10 who have developed it.
- By Nina Muslim, Staff Reporter
- Published: 00:00 March 7, 2007
- Image Credit:
- "Three years ago, I used to get one or two a year. Now, I have had three cases in the last nine months," saysDr Elham Al Amiri.
Dubai: Adult-onset diabetes, so called because it tends to affect older people, is becoming more common among children in the UAE, with doctors reporting patients as young as 10 who have developed it.
Exact data is currently not available but doctors speaking at and attending the 2nd Arab Children Health Congress reported seeing more and more cases of Type II diabetes, characterised by the body's progressive inability to make enough, or properly use insulin.
The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) had already reported a worldwide increase of this preventable disease among children during their last meeting.
Dr Elham Al Amiri, consultant paediatric endocrinologist at Al Qasimi Hospital, told Gulf News she was seeing more cases of children up to the age of 12 with the disease. Her lecture was on the growing health burden of this disease among the young.
"Three years ago, I used to get one or two a year. Now, I have had three cases in the last nine months. The youngest patient so far is 10 years old," she said.
Her report tallied with other doctors' experiences.
Dr Maha Taysir Barakat, medical and research director at the Imperial College London Diabetes Centre (ICLDC) in Abu Dhabi, said her patients were getting younger and younger.
"The youngest I've had [in the UAE] is 11 years old. He has a family history of diabetes and was obese."
Dr Asma Deeb, consultant paediatric endocrinologist at the centre, agreed, saying they were seeing more children with the disease at the centre. She added about 10 per cent of children with diabetes worldwide had Type II diabetes.
Dr Al Amiri, who spoke on the issue, believed the real number of Type II diabetes in children in the UAE was even higher due to several factors.
"It is underestimated because it is asymptomatic in many children. And people think it is a disease for the old. They don't realise that there are real children with Type II diabetes," she said.
She added in many cases, parents did not want to admit their children had the disease, causing them to resist changing their lifestyles.
She also called on health authorities to implement a national diabetes screening programme at schools, by making testing of blood sugar levels part of their health examinations.
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