To the Editor: Over the past decades, the incidence of type 2 diabetes, rarely diagnosed in children and adolescents before the 1990s,1 has been increasing in young people in several populations, including Australia.2,3,4 Early onset type 2 diabetes appears to have a more severe phenotype compared with adult onset type 2 diabetes, and has a high prevalence of complications already present at the time of diagnosis despite the patients’ young age and short duration of the disease.5
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- 1. Rosenbloom AL, Joe JR, Young RS, Winter WE. Emerging epidemic of type 2 diabetes in youth. Diabetes Care 1999; 22: 345–354.
- 2. Haynes A, Kalic R, Cooper M, et al. Increasing incidence of type 2 diabetes in Indigenous and non‐Indigenous children in Western Australia, 1990–2012. Med J Aust 2016; 204: 303. https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2016/204/8/increasing-incidence-type-2-diabetes-indigenous-and-non-indigenous-children
- 3. Titmuss A, Davis EA, Brown A, Maple‐Brown LJ. Emerging diabetes and metabolic conditions among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people. Med J Aust 2019; 210: 111–113. https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2019/210/3/emerging-diabetes-and-metabolic-conditions-among-aboriginal-and-torres-strait
- 4. Mayer‐Davis EJ, Lawrence JM, Dabelea D, et al. Incidence trends of type 1 and type 2 diabetes among youths, 2002–2012. N Engl J Med 2017; 376: 1419–1429.
- 5. Wong J, Constantino M, Yue DK. Morbidity and mortality in young‐onset type 2 diabetes in comparison to type 1 diabetes: where are we now? Curr Diab Rep 2014; 15: 566.
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