Type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

Diabetes is a chronic, potentially debilitating and often fatal disease. It occurs as a result of problems with the production and supply of the hormone insulin in the body. The body needs insulin to use the energy stored in food. When someone has diabetes they produce no or insufficient insulin (type 1 diabetes), or their body cannot use effectively the insulin they produce (type 2 diabetes).

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that cannot be prevented. Globally it is the most common form of diabetes in children, affecting around 500,000 children under 15. However, as a result of increasing childhood obesity and sedentary lifestyles, type 2 diabetes is also increasing fast in children and adolescents. In some countries (e.g. Japan), type 2 diabetes has become the most common form of the disease in children.

• Globally, there are close to 500,000 children under the age of 15 with type 1 diabetes.
• Every day 200 children develop type 1 diabetes.
• Every year, 70,000 children under the age of 15 develop type 1 diabetes.
• Type 1 diabetes is increasing in children at a rate of 3% each year
• Type 1 diabetes is increasing fastest in pre-school children, at rate of 5% per year.
• Finland, Sweden and Norway have the highest incidence rates for type 1 diabetes in children.
• Type 2 diabetes has been reported in children as young as eight and reports reveal that it now exists in children thought previously not to be at risk.
  In Native and Aboriginal communities in the United States, Canada and Australia at least one in 100 youth have diabetes. In some communities, it is one in every 25.
• Over half of children with diabetes develop complications within 15 years.
• Global studies have shown that type 2 diabetes can be prevented by enabling individuals to lose 7-10% of their body weight, and by increasing their physical activity to a modest level.
• Type 2 diabetes in children is becoming a global public health issue with potentially serious outcomes.
• Type 2 diabetes affects children in both developed and developing countries.