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Diabetic Teens Better Their Records

Good news for kids with type1 diabetes.  A study in the March issue of the Journal of Pediatrics found that some teens have gotten better at keeping their blood sugar under control and have had fewer trips to the emergency room, among other pluses.  The improvements coincided with the adoption in recent years of more intensive diabetes management strategies like using insulin pumps that deliver the hormone continuously and improved types of insulin.  Type1 diabetes occurs when the pancreas stops producing insulin.  About 1 in 500 children in the United States has type1 diabetes, accounting for 85% of all pediatric cases.
The study followed more than 400 youths ages 8 to 16 in two groups for two years, the first starting in 1997 and the next in 2002.  At the end of that time, nearly half the kids in that second group met blood glucose target levels, compared with 30 percent in the first group.  Children in the second group also had 24 percent fewer visits to the emergency room.  “I’m most encouraged by the improvements in the outcomes and the reductions in complications,” says study coauthor Lori Laffel, chief of pediatrics at the Joslin Diabetes Center and associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

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