Elevated Cardiometabolic Risk Profile Among Young Adults With Diabetes: Need for Action.

Abstract

In this issue of Diabetes Care , Saydah et al. (1) from the Division of Diabetes Translation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, explore differences in demographic and cardiovascular disease risk factors in younger adults (18–44 years of age) and older adults (≥45 years) with diabetes compared with persons without diabetes. This is an important area for research, since, as documented recently by the SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth (SEARCH) study, prevalence (2) and incidence (3) trends are rising among youth for both type 1 diabetes (T1D) and especially type 2 diabetes (T2D), yet little work on the characteristics of younger adults with diabetes has been published. Saydah et al. analyzed the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 2007 to 2016, which included a representative sample of U.S. adults aged 18 years and older ( n = 23,798). Among younger persons with diabetes (mean age 36.4 years), with an average of 7.7 years of clinical diabetes duration, 29% had no health insurance, 22% had Medicaid-like plans, and only 65% reported having a usual place to receive care—all higher proportions than among persons without diabetes. They were also more likely to report living below the poverty line and being of minority race/ethnicity. Not surprisingly, persons with diabetes in both age-groups had higher adiposity, hypertension, and lipids and a poorer diet and less leisure-time physical activity than persons without diabetes in both age-groups. Perhaps more surprising, young adults with diabetes had significantly elevated lipids …