Pediatric diabetes and obesity

Maternal BMI prior to and during early pregnancy has a greater impact than gestational diabetes and hypertension, and pre-eclampsia on the risk for increased BMI in childhood, study findings indicate.

Impaired glucose tolerance in obese youths frequently reverts to normal, although the chances of this happening are strongly influenced by ethnicity, researchers report in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health.

Children who are overweight only have an increased risk for type 2 diabetes in adulthood if they remain overweight beyond the age of 13 years, according to the results of a large Danish study.

Researchers have found that the bodyweights of family members of military personnel tend to change to match what is predominant in their area of posting.

Genetic variants associated with childhood body mass index correlate with the risk for type 1 diabetes, suggests an analysis of genome-wide association studies.

Session attendance was only moderate and self-monitoring very poor in youths with type 2 diabetes who participated in the TODAY lifestyle programme, an analysis shows.

A randomized controlled trial shows some benefit of metformin treatment in prepubertal children with obesity, but not in pubertal participants.

Cochrane reviewers have assessed the effectiveness of behavior-changing interventions in overweight and obese children, finding an indication of benefit but based on mostly low-quality evidence.

The HAPO FUS investigators have reported that the increased risk for adiposity in the babies of women with gestational diabetes persists through to later childhood.

A study of Danish men suggests that the increased risk for diabetes associated with being overweight in childhood may be reversed if people lose their excess weight by young adulthood.

The tri-ponderal mass index estimates body fat levels in adolescents more accurately than body mass index, study results suggest.

A randomized trial shows that supporting overweight and obese adolescents to drink more water alongside adherence to a healthy diet does not improve their weight loss – although this may partly be because few participants managed to drink the required eight cups per day.

Two studies of patients who underwent bariatric surgery during adolescence reveal sustained weight loss and improved cardiovascular risk factors 5 years or more after the procedure.