Predicting prediabetes in young people is possible: researchers
Prediabetes among children and young people is an emerging epidemic in the United States that disproportionately affects Hispanic minors and now, a new study has found a way to predict it.
Diabetes is one of the most serious and common diseases in the world, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the most common is type 2 diabetes, generally in adults, which occurs when the body becomes resistant to insulin or does not produce enough insulin.
A scientific team at the University of Southern California (USC) has identified two metabolites – substances produced in the body during metabolism – that can help predict which young Latinos are more likely to develop prediabetes, a precursor condition to type 2 diabetes.
The study published this Thursday in the journal ‘Diabetes Care’ was funded by the National Institutes of Health and is the first large-scale investigation that looked at metabolites as possible predictors of prediabetes or type 2 diabetes in young Latinos.
“Preventing the development of prediabetes in these children is crucial, and it is difficult for doctors to identify which young people are at high risk of developing diabetes,” said Jesse Goodrich, a professor at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and senior author of the study. study.
The article notes that prediabetes among children and youth is an emerging epidemic in the United States that disproportionately affects Hispanic minors, and Goodrich noted that prediabetes and type 2 diabetes are much more serious and progress more quickly when they develop in childhood.
Diabetes and ethnic differences
More than 22% of Latino youth and more than 28.7% of Latino young adults have prediabetes compared to 15.8% of white youth and 21% of white young adults.
The researchers used samples collected in two previous studies and included participants who were overweight but had not been diagnosed with prediabetes or diabetes at the start of the study. Nearly one in three participants developed prediabetes or type 2 diabetes at follow-up exams.
The researchers then analyzed the glucose tolerance test samples using an indiscriminate approach to include all possible metabolites present in the samples.
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Thus, they were able to determine that phenyl sulfate, a metabolite related to diet, and caprylic acid, a type of fatty acid, were the most accurate predictors of prediabetes when combined with other risk factors such as excess weight, age and blood sugar levels.
This combination of indicators was more accurate in predicting prediabetes than models based solely on traditional risk factors.
The research also showed that the most commonly used indicators of prediabetes in adults, blood insulin and glucose levels, do not work as well in predicting prediabetes in Latino children.
