Insulin Resistance Among Adolescents
If recent research on the prevalence of insulin resistance among American adolescents is accurate, the medical community faces an epidemic of incident diabetes in the future.
A group of investigators from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and University of California, San Francisco, conducted a study of insulin resistance—a predictor of type 2 diabetes—among adolescents who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2000.
Researchers used the homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance, which is derived from measurements of fasting glucose and insulin levels. The study included 1,802 of 4,902 adolescents without diabetes, aged 12–19 years, for whom fasting laboratory measurements were available.
Overall, insulin resistance was more common in girls than boys, and higher in Mexican-American children than white children. No differences were noted between whites and blacks. Children who were obese—with a body mass index at or above the 95th percentile for age and sex—had much higher levels of insulin resistance than children of normal weight. More than 50% of obese children had insulin resistance.
Weight was the most important risk factor for insulin resistance, more so than ethnicity, sex, or age—accounting for 29% of the variance in insulin resistance measurements, according to researchers.
“The prevalence of insulin resistance in obese children foreshadows a worrisome trend for the burden of type 2 diabetes in the U.S.,” the researchers conclude.
