Key research areas identified to combat youth-onset type 2 diabetes

A new study has detected the next steps that are needed to reduce the rising prevalence of youth-onset type 2 diabetes.

Academics have provided an overview of emerging topics in type 2 diabetes research that have potential to inform strategies for effective preventive action.

Research priorities identified in this study include:

• Perform systematic surveillance of the entire course of youth-onset type 2 diabetes, from normoglycaemia to dysglycaemia to full-blown type 2 diabetes and its complications / comorbidities
• Improve understanding of youth-onset type 2 diabetes pathophysiology, an end point that will provide insight on the spectrum of type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents and aid in identifying high-risk individuals for preventive action
• Apply a holistic approach for identifying lifetime exposures and experiences, including multilevel analyses of upstream contextual risk factors (e.g., social determinants of health) as well as downstream family – and individual-level characteristics that independently and interactively promote risk of type 2 diabetes
• Develop multilevel strategies for type 2 diabetes prevention that will be beneficial to multiple other cardiometabolic conditions on the rise among young people worldwide.

To read the study, click here.