Samples and data are analyzed from a longitudinal population study (1965 to 2007) that allows study of the risk factors and effects of diabetes mellitus. Long-term observations, up to 40 years, confirmed the profound effect of pre-existing diabetes or abnormal glucose tolerance in pregnancy on the risk of diabetes in the offspring. Among nondiabetic children, a number of risk factors, including parental diabetes, body size measurements and glucose and insulin concentrations, predict development of diabetes by young adulthood. Individual estimates of risk can be made to assist in identifying children and adolescents at highest risk of developing diabetes so that more intensive intervention can be offered. Largely due to increasing obesity in children and the vicious cycle of increasing prevalence of diabetes in pregnancy, the incidence of type 2 diabetes in Pima Indian children and adolescents has increased dramatically over the last few decades, despite relatively little change in incidence rates in adults. Increasing prevalence of type 2 diabetes in youth leads to long-term complications such as renal failure occurring in middle adulthood and perpetuates the vicious cycle of diabetes in pregnancy begetting diabetes in the offspring. During the last year we have planned for new studies of pregant women and their children to assess long-term effects on the children of changes in weight and glycemia in the pregnant mothers.
| Franks, Paul W; Hanson, Robert L; Knowler, William C et al. (2010) Childhood obesity, other cardiovascular risk factors, and premature death. N Engl J Med 362:485-93 |
| Thearle, Marie S; Bunt, Joy C; Knowler, William C et al. (2009) Childhood predictors of adult acute insulin response and insulin action. Diabetes Care 32:938-43 |
| Gluck, Marci E; Venti, Colleen A; Lindsay, Robert S et al. (2009) Maternal influence, not diabetic intrauterine environment, predicts children's energy intake. Obesity (Silver Spring) 17:772-7 |
