Congratulations to Dr Angela Titmuss and the team, including the Children's Diabetes Centre researchers Dr Aveni Haynes (Head of Epidemiology Research) and Professor Liz Davis (CDC Co-director), whose paper describing very high rates of youth-onset type 2 diabetes across northern Australia has been published in the prestigious journal The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.

A new study has found alarming rates of youth-onset type 2 diabetes among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people across northern Australia, raising concerns for their future health.

The study uncovered what is arguably the highest reported prevalence in any population of youth internationally within the past 25 years and ten times higher than previously reported in Australia.

Read article published on ABC News online on October 30, 2021. Story by Laetitia Lemke.

New research shows northern Australia leads the world for type 2 diabetes in young people

She's still learning the rules on-court, but off-court six-year-old Kudin Brogan has already mastered complex systems governing her health and fitness.

A routine check-up last year quickly escalated to reveal a lifetime of careful health monitoring ahead for the then pre-schooler.

"We went to the doctors and the doctor said I had diabetes and I was scared," Kudin said.

While type 1 diabetes comes with symptoms like thirst, blurred vision and fatigue, type 2 diabetes can appear silently.

"[The diagnosis was] purely accidental," Kudin's mother, Gemma Brogan, said.

"We went into the clinic and just did a blood test and they said, 'Do further tests' and it came back confirmed that she does have diabetes."

World-leading rates of youth-onset diabetes

Kudin is one of almost 400 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged under 25 across northern Australia who have been diagnosed with youth-onset type 2 diabetes.

That's according to new research led by Darwin's Menzies School of Health Research, published today in The Lancet medical journal.

Lead researcher Dr Angela Titmuss said that, by using primary healthcare data instead of hospital data, the research showed prevalence rates 10 times higher than previously recorded in Australia, and the highest rates recorded in the world.

The data showed only 14 per cent of young people had blood sugars in an acceptable range, and one in 150 young people were affected by type 2 diabetes across northern Australia.

"The highest rates were in central Australia, where there were one in 70 young people [who were affected by type 2 diabetes]," Dr Titmuss said, adding young women were most-affected by the disease.

And the statistics are tipped to get worse.

Researchers say that when a woman has type 2 diabetes in pregnancy, the resulting child is more likely to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes — and at a younger age.

"This is a preventable disease," Dr Titmuss said.

"If we don't change it, there are big implications for future complications such as kidney disease."

She said the Northern Territory already records the highest rates of dialysis per capita in the southern hemisphere.

"We do not want that to happen for these young people," Dr Titmuss said.

Research co-author Professor Louise Maple-Brown agrees.

She heads Royal Darwin Hospital's endocrinology department and is a Menzies Senior Principal Research Fellow.

Professor Maple-Brown said the government was "spending an enormous amount of money" on the complications of diabetes, which included heart attacks, kidney dialysis and amputations.

"Investment in preventing diabetes and in managing diabetes will ultimately save money in the long run from reducing costs of complications," she said.

"The actual numbers of these children and young people are quite small, like the total number is 380 in the paper across all these regions."

She said more funding was needed, particularly for primary healthcare, to improve their youth workforce and tailor models of care.

These are shocking statistics that Kudin's mother says would spark a comprehensive response from governments, if it were reported in a different cohort.

"If this same type 2 results research was done in urban [areas], it would be a big campaign drive. Because it's Indigenous, it's kind of pushed to the side, put to the spotlight for a few seconds [and] not to be seen again," Ms Brogan said.

She has four generations of diabetes in her family alone.

Grandmother Vicki Brogan says the fear of diabetes is something the family lives with every day.

"It's a silent disease. I think that people don't know because, if it's high or low, you could still go into a diabetic coma and you mightn't come out and that's my biggest fear for my husband, my daughter, my granddaughter."

Along with researchers, she's urging all Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander families to get their children tested regularly.

Key points:

• New Research shows a type 2 diabetes epidemic in northern Australia
• In Central Australia, one in 35 women under 25 were reported to be affected
• Researchers say urgent funding is needed for prevention, early diagnosis, treatment and management of this disease

This content was originally published on abc.net.au,