Type 2 diabetes was once a condition that mainly affected older people. Today, it is increasingly seen in younger adults, especially women, as the nation’s obesity rates increase.
New diagnoses of type 2 diabetes have nearly doubled in women in their twenties in the past 13 years, figures for England show. In men in their twenties, diagnoses have risen by about 50 per cent.
The condition is still fairly rare in young people, affecting less than 0.1 per cent of those in this age group. But the trend is concerning, especially because type 2 diabetes tends to progress more quickly when it happens at a younger age, experts have said.
Shorts
“This is really worrying given the poor health outcomes from early-onset type 2 diabetes,” said Dr Shivani Misra, a metabolism researcher at Imperial College London, who led the study, published in The Lancet Regional Health Europe.
