Babies Who Gain Weight Quickly May Be at Higher Risk of Diabetes
WebMD News Archive
Aug. 17, 2000 -- Some children who gain weight very quickly during their first year of life may be more likely to develop diabetes during childhood, according a team of researchers in the Netherlands.
"This finding does not mean you should eat less as a baby," Jan G. Bruining, MD, tells WebMD. "The increase in infant growth is likely to be related to a genetic potential, not increased food. To use an analogy, the fuel intake of these infants is fine, but their internal carburetor is somehow set to 'increased growth.'" Bruining is a professor at the University of Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
According to a research letter he wrote, published in the medical journal The Lancet, a research team looked at growth information on 91 children who had been newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. They found that children with diabetes had put on more weight during their first year of life than children who did not go on to develop diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes, formerly known as insulin-dependent diabetes or juvenile diabetes, occurs during childhood or adolescence. Children with this disorder must have daily insulin shots to control their blood sugar. This type of diabetes is much more rare than type 2 diabetes, which is most common in overweight people over the age of 40.
"This research does not mean that obesity causes type 1 diabetes," Richard Furlanetto, MD, tells WebMD. "They are simply associated, and there could be many possible reasons for this association." Furlanetto is scientific director of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and professor of pediatrics at the University of Rochester, both in New York.
For example, it may be that a genetic predisposition for increased growth contributes to the development of antibodies in the body that kill off cells in the pancreas, the organ that produces insulin. In fact, the researchers did find more of these types of abnormal antibodies in children who grew rapidly before their first birthdays.
Bruining hopes that this finding will help in the search for genetic factors connected to increased growth in infancy. "Hopefully, this will lead to better tools to predict childhood diabetes," he says.