Pediatric Diabetes and Caring for Children Diabetes

Despite our best efforts as parents or caregivers, children will become sick. One such illness which is becoming increasingly prevalent is pediatric diabetes. However, keeping a diabetic child healthy is dependent on being informed about the disease, its symptoms, and treatments. Caring for the child with diabetes is the responsibility of all persons who, at some time or other, has to take care of that child. As such, parents need to ensure that all care givers are informed about their diabetic child's dietary needs.

Most children tend to have type I diabetes, previously known as juvenile diabetes, although children are increasingly being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes as well. Type I diabetes occurs when the pancreas does not work and does not produce any insulin. Insulin is needed to help break down sugars (glucose) in our body to help it work efficiently. When this breakdown of sugars does not happen, as in the case of type I diabetes, the sugar stays in the blood stream.

Because insulin is important in breaking down sugars in the body to use for energy, insulin has to be taken to control the illness. Therefore type I diabetes is also called insulin-dependent diabetes. Exercise and diet are also important helping to control this type of diabetes. Caring for the child with diabetes means that you will need to recognize the signs of the illness, as well as any resulting reactions that can occur. The main signs of pediatric diabetes are:

Breath smelling like fruit
Constant hunger
Pulse beating faster than normal
Headaches
Being weak and dizzy
Difficulty concentrating
Vision becoming foggy
Skin tending to be cold and moist
Experiencing seizures

Next, you should be able to identify when the child is in crisis, suffering either a hypoglycemic or hyperglycemic episode, and you should know what to do help in either case. Hyperglycemia occurs when the sugar levels are too high. Rising sugar levels are generally a result of eating too much, not taking the correct amount of insulin, or not exercising enough. When a child is hyperglycemic, treatment by medical professionals is needed. A child suffering from high blood sugar will complain of the following:

Weakness
Extreme thirst
Needing to urinate frequently
Not seeing clearly
Not being hungry

With hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), the symptoms vary from child to child, but some of the typical signs include:

Clumsiness
Sudden mood changes
Sweating
Hunger
Seeming confused
Trembling
Headache
Tingling feeling around the mouth

The first course of action is to increase the child's sugar intake by giving them something sweet to drink, such as regular soda, fruit juice or glucose tablets. Once the child is feeling better, you should give them something more solid to eat. If the child is too weak to swallow or is unconscious, administer the recommended dosage of glucagon and call for immediate medical assistance. Glucagon is a medication given by injection to rapidly increase the level of glucose in the blood. It is normally the first course of treatment in severe hypoglycemia.

Diet is a major part of keeping the diabetic child healthy. The caregiver has the responsibility to ensure that the child eats what is recommended. It is also important to talk with the child and let them know that they will get really sick if they eat too many sweets or other foods that can pose a risk. It is also important to let others, such as teachers, know that a diabetic child may need to snack to boost their sugar and energy levels. The child with diabetes must also have regular meals.

Exercise is important as well, and there is no reason why the diabetic child cannot participate in all regular physical activity. Exercise helps to control blood sugar levels. However, suffering from pediatric diabetes should not exert themselves before meal time. Also, they will need to have a snack, such as juice, crackers or a fruit, handy, as they will need to replace sugar lost during physical activity.

Most importantly, children should be taught how to test their blood sugar levels during the course of the day, once they are able to do soon their own. This is important so that they can take insulin or eat something as needed.

Caring for the children diabetes while calling for more vigilance in terms of their eating habits can be stress free once you and others taking care of the child know what to do and follow the rules. Also, make sure that emergency numbers are close at hand and that the child learns how to recognize symptoms of potential trouble and take corrective actions.

Spotlight On Diabetes

Diabetes, the fifth leading killer in developed countries, is a disease in which the body's failure to regulate glucose, or blood sugar, can lead to serious and even fatal complications.
Until very recently, the regulation of glucose - how much sugar is present in a person's blood , how much is taken up by cells for fuel, and how much is released from energy stores - was regarded as a conversation between a few key players: the pancreas, the liver, muscle and fat.
Now, however the party is proving to be much louder and more complex than anyone had shown before. Focusing on the cross-talk between more different organs,cells and molecules represents a "very important change in our paradigm" for understanding how the body handles glucose, said Dr C Ronald Kahn,a diabetes researcher and professor at Harvard Medical School.
The defining feature of diabetes is elevated blood sugar, But the reasons for abnormal sugar seem to "differ tremendously from person to person" said Dr Robert A Rizza, a professor at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. Understanding exactly what signals are evolved, he said, raises the hope of "providing the right care for each person each day, rather than giving everyone the same drug."

Vitamin B6 : Cure For Type 1 Diabetes

Vitamins B6 leads to normal functioning of endothelial in juvenile diabetes. The Mid-July issue of ‘Pediatrics’ has released the detailed report of the recent study.

The thorough study consisted administration of folate and vitamin B6 alone and in association for eight weeks in 124 children with type 1 diabetes.

The study come to an end with a conclusion that high-dose folate and vitamin B6 might be helpful to minimize endothelial dysfunction in the children.

Major progress in diabetes study, scientists heal mice ‘overnight’

Chances are relatively very high that in the coming time it would be quite possible to eradicate type 1 diabetes totally. Actually, a recent study targeting at the causes of type 1 diabetes has prompted researchers to think so. As we all know that in a person with type 1 diabetes pancreas stop generating insulin, which compel such people to have insulin injection on regular basis in order to survive. However, through this recent study, researchers have tried to manufacture out what exactly results pancreas to stem the production of insulin and the interesting thing is that researchers have found the reason behind this.

According to the researchers, all this happens due to breakdown of our nervous system. Before bringing up this fact, researchers conducted few thorough tests on lab mice and in this series, they finished faulty sensory nerves of the diabetic mice, which freed the mice from the clutches of diabetes.

In the studies conducted previously, researchers had also tried to manifest that sensory nerves of the pancreas release a neuropeptide called “substance P”, which assures that islet cells release sufficient amount of insulin. For proving the potency of “substance P”, researchers carried out two types of test. In the first test, researchers destroyed the nerves of some mice that let out “substance P” and these mice developed diabetes. In the 2nd study, researchers injected “substance P” in the pancreas of the mice with diabetes and studied that such diabetic mice overcame their diabetes problem overnight and interestingly, these mice didn’t develop diabetes. This study clearly defines that how effective “substance P” is in checking diabetes.

This study is first of its nature that has tried to have a glance into the whole wide concept of diabetes in a completely different and innovative way and gives hope to millions of people.

Improved hygiene : A risk factor for type-I diabetes in kids

There are no doubts that a surplus amount of sugar intake, inadequacy of physical exercise in combination with hereditary factors make the situation ripe for development of diabetes...but off lately another fresh factor has been added into this list. According to a recent study, good hygiene and clean environmental living conditions have added into the risk of diabetes particularly the type 1 diabetes in kids.

Trends display that cases of type-1 diabetes have become five-fold in children over the last 15 years.

“It could be a consequence of people being exposed to fewer infections. Some scientists believe this is why rates of asthma are also increasing at peak. The immune system is presumed to fight infection but in asthma and type 1 diabetes it gets misdirected,” opines a researcher Polly.

The rise is too sharp and fast to be blamed upon genetic factors, so changes in environment can be another major issue, details of which are still to be recognized and discussed in detail.

White Kids More Prone To Diabetes

When the subject of diabetes is referred, white kids are said to be more prone to the dealty disease; claiming this, a new population-based study shows that type 1 diabetes is more prevalent in white kids than those of other races.

According to this study:-

• White kids were more susceptible to type 1 diabetes.

• Among Hispanic and Asian kids, its prevalence was lower but just slightly.

• Kids between 10 to 14 were comparatively more susceptible to type 1 diabetes.

• From gender point of view, girls were found more prone to diabetes than boys.

• Constantly, prevalence of type 2 diabetes among kids was found increasing.

• Prevalence of type 2 diabetes was more in American Indian between the group

After reading these facts, severity of the situation can easily be estimated. Well, it is nice to know that there has not been seen much rise in diabetes among kids but to take the fact, which states that around 15,000 kids are engulfed with type 1 diabetes every year, taking it as granted won’t be right.

Actually, diabetes is turning out to be quite a serious problem, which is fast raising its hood round the mammoth world, taking kids under its clutches. Well, a high percentage of experts, believes that quick rise in obesity among kids is one the of the basic causes behind increase in type 1 diabetes among children. More brood is the fact that type 2 diabetes, which is normally associated with adults has fast started foraying into kids too all over the world.

On this base, it won’t be wrong to say that relevant and strong measures are required to be taken; otherwise days are not far away when diabetes would appear as a common health problem among white kids, turning their lives into a hell.