Diabetes Type 2 Can Be Reversed in Children

Children diabetics with Type 2 diabetes can beat the disease.
Children with Type 2 diabetes are able to return to a normal lifestyle through changes in lifestyle changes and medication, an endocrinologist said in a published report on Monday.
KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH) in Singapore has seen a reversal in 12% of children with Type 2 diabetes. Diabetes occurs when the body does not produce enough insulin to deal with blood sugar, or when the insulin produced does not do its work properly.
Among children with impaired glucose tolerance, also called pre-diabetes, the reversal can be as high as a third to half the number, Dr. Warren Lee, head of endocrinology at KKH, told The Straits Times.
Such reversals can also happen to adults with Type 2, but only if the diabetes has not reached the stage when the body stops producing insulin altogether, he said.
Lee will be sharing this information with more than 2,000 delegates at the International Diabetes Federation Western Pacific Region Congress being held in Bangkok.
Four in five of the diabetic children were obese, said Dr. Fabian Yap, a paediatric endocrinologist from KKH. When they lost weight, their cells became more efficient at dealing with their blood sugar.
Exercise can itself make a big difference. Exercise makes a critical difference. It reduces unspent calories and it uses muscles where insulin receptors are found and it keeps sugar levels down better.
Such children are still at a high risk of becoming diabetic again, the experts said. They need to work at keeping their bodies free of the disease.
For somen, this means continuing to take medication.
While the KKH figures are for the young, Lee said the reversal is theoretically similar for adults.