When she was taken care of by Dr. Michael Yafi, a pediatrician specializing in endocrinology at the University of Texas at Houston, the 3-year-old girl weighed 35 kg, twice the normal weight at this age. Her parents were obese but showed no signs of diabetes. Tests revealed that she had an elevated fasting blood sugar level but did not show any of the antibodies that would indicate a type 1 diabetes.
The doctors, who just presented this case at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Stockholm, then made a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. The girl thus became the youngest patient diagnosed. with the disease.
The six months of treatment that followed consisted of completely reviewing the family’s eating habits (calorie control, replacing sugary drinks with water), exercising and taking the anti-diabetic metformin. After losing weight, the little girl’s blood glucose level returned to normal and the treatment was gradually stopped. Six months after the diagnosis, the girl had lost 25% of her starting weight.
“Curing type 2 diabetes is possible in children with early diagnosis, appropriate treatment and lifestyle modification,” said Dr Yafi.
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