How Can Doctors Tell The Type Of Diabetes A Child Has?
In pre-teen children who are lean, it's probably correct to assume a diagnosis of type 1diabetes. However, in overweight teenagers, it may be hard to tell type 1 diabetes from type 2 diabetes.
Those more likely to have type 2 diabetes include:
- Older children and heavy children
- Youth of African American, Hispanic, Asian American, or Native American descent
- Youth with a longer course of symptoms of diabetes
- Youth with a family history of diabetes occurring at an older age
- Those with high blood pressure, high lipid levels or acanthosis nigricans (darkening of the skin at the neck and arm pits)
For research studies (and increasingly for clinical reasons), blood tests are often taken to determine which kind of diabetes a child has. For research, this is done because researchers need to know if there are any elements of double diabetes which might distort the results of the research study.
Last Updated: Tuesday March 25, 2008 08:33:12
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