June 25, 1999
By Minerva Canto
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Hispanic and black children are apparently more prone to developing an adult form of diabetes that can lead to heart attacks, strokes, blindness and amputations if it's not diagnosed and treated early, researchers said Saturday.
But more research needs to be done to target specific risk factors among different ethnic groups, said the scientists, who released their findings at the annual conference of the American Diabetes Association.
``Some difference between ethnic groups may indicate variation in the underlying biology or sociology affecting diabetes in these groups and need to be explored,'' said Kenneth L. Jones, the chief of pediatric endocrinology and diabetes at the University of California, San Diego's School of Medicine.
Two separate studies conducted by researchers at New York's Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia Presbyterian Center and the UCSD School of Medicine concluded that obesity also plays a major factor in whether children will develop Type II diabetes, a form of diabetes usually seen in people 45 years and older.
Almost 16 million people in the United States have diabetes, the sixth-leading cause of death in the country. The most common and serious form of diabetes is Type II; Type I is less common, but easier to diagnose and generally affects children.
``Type II diabetes was practically unheard of in young people until the last few years, and its recent appearance is alarming,'' said Dr. Robin S. Goland, co-director of the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center.
The UCSD study assessed 58 children and teenagers of different ethnicities who had been diagnosed with Type II diabetes. All except one were overweight. More than 50 percent were Mexican American and 19 percent were black.
In the Columbia Presbyterian study, researchers studied 19 obese children. Nearly half were Hispanic and 37 percent were black.
In both studies, Caucasian, Asian, American Indian children were also part of the study.
Other researchers believe lifestyle - rather than genetics - plays a bigger role in vulnerability to diabetes.
``Watching TV greater than five hours a day increases the risk of diabetes 2.5 times,'' said Dr. Bernard Zinman, a scientist at the Samuel Lun-enfeld Research Institute at the University of Western Ontario in Canada.
Zinman, who was not connected to either of the two reports presented Saturday, has studied 445 people ages 2 to 19 and found that obesity was more common among diabetics than in the general population.
The increasing incidence of diabetes among minorities has prompted researchers to investigate. Last fall, the National Institutes of Health launched a six-year clinical trial to determine how life-style affects people's predisposition to diabetes, especially among minorities. The study will involve 4,000 volunteers at 25 medical centers across the United States.
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