New research collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that while overall cases of diabetes are decreasing in America, they are rising amongst young people. The CDC published the report on Monday in the journal Pediatrics, and researcher Ashleigh May says the findings are "very concerning."
According to the report, cases of diabetes amongst adolescents have increased from 9 percent in 2000 to 23 percent in 2003. Larry Deeb, former president of medicine and science for the American Diabetes Association, says parents must make exercise a priority for their adolescent kids.
"To get ahead of this problem, we have to be incredibly aggressive and look at children and adolescents and say you have to make time for physical activity," Deeb said.
May and her colleagues reviewed health records from 3,400 kids between the ages of 12 and 19 from 1999 to 2008. The data was collected as part of the CDC's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
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