KNOWING THE DISEASE
More minority kids getting adult diabetes
Disease deadly, preventable; school shows how
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Type 1 diabetes was called insulin-dependent or juvenile diabetes. A complex autoimmune reaction destroys the cells that create insulin in the pancreas. Insulin regulates the body's use of glucose. To survive, those with type 1 must take insulin by injection or insulin pump.
Type 2 is often called adult-onset diabetes and occurs when the body becomes resistant to its own insulin and the pancreas loses its ability to produce it.
Gestational diabetes occurs during pregnancy in some women and is a form of glucose intolerance. It's more common in Hispanics, blacks and American Indians.
● Extreme or frequent thirst or hunger
● Unusual fatigue
● Frequent urination
● Occasional blurred vision
● Cuts or sores that won't heal
● Numb or tingling hands or feet
● Unexplained weight loss
● Darkened skin around the neck or underarms in children
To find out more about diabetes, call the Arizona Diabetes Association in Tucson at 795-3711.
To get information about childhood diabetes or get in touch with a support group in Tucson for parents of children with diabetes, contact the nonprofit Southern Arizona Branch of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International.
Call 327-9900 or write to JDRFI at 4560 E. Broadway, Suite 214, Tucson, AZ 85711.
● Kidney damage
● Blindness
● Cardiovascular disease
● Stroke
● Death
● Diabetes was the sixth-leading cause of death on death certificates in 2002
The cost of diabetes
- Diabetes represents 11 per cent of the total health care expenditure in the United States in 2002.
- The per capita annual cost of health care for people with diabetes in 2002 was $13,243.
- Diabetes-related hospitalizations in 2002 totaled 16.9 million days
- Cardiovascular disease is the most costly complication of diabetes. In 2002 it accounted for $17.6 billion dollars of the total $92 billion in direct medical costs for diabetes.
Source: American Diabetes Association
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Marco Melgar, an 11-year-old sixth-grader, has friends with diabetes, but he's looking forward to a lifetime without the deadly disease.
The Tucson boy has learned that exercise and good nutrition will help him avoid becoming a statistic.
In Pima County, thousands of Hispanic and American Indian adults struggle with obesity and the challenges of type 2 diabetes. Hispanics, blacks and American Indians have higher rates of diabetes than whites.
Because of an upswing in the numbers of overweight minority children, more of them are being diagnosed with adult-type diabetes.
It's estimated that at least 40,000 American children now have type 2 diabetes, the type associated with adult obesity.
Born genetically programmed to store fat during times of famine, overweight Hispanics, Indians and blacks develop symptoms of diabetes from a regular diet of low-cost, high-calorie fast food and sodas, coupled with little daily physical activity.
Without changing their diet and activity level, some minority children could spend their lives injecting insulin several times a day or attached to an insulin pump with a needle beneath their skin to regulate blood glucose.
Some could die prematurely from the complications of diabetes - kidney failure and heart disease.
Challenger Middle School in Sunnyside Unified School District screens its children for diabetes.
Parents in the predominantly Hispanic South Side area are told when a child needs to see a doctor to be tested for diabetes, and the family is referred to publicly funded health clinics.
A free weekly diabetes prevention program aimed at this "medically underserved" minority population is helping teach some of the children how they can try to prevent the onset of diabetes.
"Defeating Diabetes Through Dance and Diet" began last spring as a project of the University of Arizona's Center for Health Equality and UA's Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.
Challenger School counselors Sagrario Espinosa and Maritza Garlant-Molin coordinated the program with Ada Dieke, 26, a UA masters in public health fellow, who designed and ran it.
After UA funding ran out earlier this month, Girl Scouts of America stepped in with funding to keep the program going.
The free after-school program offers an hour of dance twice a month and an hour of instruction twice a month on healthful meals and tips about diabetes.
Nathaniel Bolivar, 12, a seventh-grader at Challenger, said he took the class because he's at risk for diabetes.
"I just wanted to learn more so you won't get it, and I can help my tata (grandfather) with it. He gets insulin shots," Nathaniel said.
Dieke chose hip-hop for the exercise part of the program to get the kids really moving.
Kaleshia Andrews, 11, a sixth-grader, said she's "been wanting to learn about diabetes so I know."
"My mom (a diabetic) has a machine at home," she said. "I eat a lot of vegetables, but my sister likes hot Cheetos."
Dr. Kurt J. Griffin, a UA assistant professor of pediatrics and a pediatric endocrinologist with University Physicians Healthcare, said he sees more preadolescents with adult-type diabetes, which usually doesn't occur until after age 40.
Diabetic children are showing up at the UA College of Medicine's Steele Children's Research CenterAngel Wing for Children with Diabetes weighing as much as 300 pounds by age 12, he said.
Sherman Garver, a research professor at the College of Medicine, studies diabetes and said it's tough, particularly for Hispanics and American Indians, to avoid the weight gain that leads to diabetes.
Historically, "these people were very active all day, farming and walking long distances," he said. "Now they're not. And now they have very calorie-dense foods that they consume - the deep-fat fried breads, the tortillas. They tuck all that fat away. . . .
"They can't sit around and eat McDonald's. Their bodies are used to the famine, and there is no famine now."
He said adult diabetes in children is "largely preventable."
"Sadly, we see too many children like this now," Garver said. "For all these kids, the answer is diet and exercise."
Griffin said young people are often not mature enough to understand the risk they face and the importance of a more healthful lifestyle.
Even when warned that they could lose kidney function and end up blind and on dialysis for four hours a day three times a week, many still won't change their eating habits or activity level, he said.
To make an impact on a diabetic child who is at risk, "you have to get tough and hit them where they live," he said. "Take back the cell phone or the video game. These kids need limits, just like toddlers."
The Challenger Middle School program invited parents to visit for their own hour of exercise - salsa dancing - after the children's class, but none showed up, the counselors said.
Garver said parents should help their children develop healthful eating habits before they get fat.
And that includes infants, he said.
"Babies as young as 6 months already know what they like to eat. By the time a child is in early adolescence, eating habits are set and difficult to modify."
Griffin said more frequent visits to the pediatrician during early childhood may help prevent diabetes.
"Pediatricians see the kids when they're teeny tiny, and then they don't come in until they need shots for kindergarten, and then they fall off the face of the planet," he said.
"When the kids come to see me, it's kind of too late."
Source: National Institutes of HealthSources: Dr. Kurt Griffin and Arizona Department of Health Services, Division of Public Health Services, Diabetes Prevention and Control Program
Many poor families can't afford the fresh fruit and veggies and meat that would provide a more healthy diet. And research has proven that a typical American diet when consumed by Native Americans, mexicans, and pacific Islanders leads to the storing of fat.
Bravo to the kids in this story!