M_POWR Initiatives
- Type 2 diabetes in youth
- Using research on childhood obesity more efficiently
- Overeating and obesity: comparing children with three different types of obesity
- Heart disease and childhood obesity
Addressing Type 2 diabetes in the childhood and adolescent population in Australia: Phase I - Identification of children/adolescents with established Type 2 diabetes (2008-2009).
Even though Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes both mean there is a problem in the way a person’s body deals with sugar (insulin), they are quite different diseases with different causes and treatments. Not much is known about Type 2 diabetes in youth because it has, until recently, been a problem that only develops in older adults. However, due to the recent increases in childhood obesity, Type 2 diabetes is now emerging as a significant problem in youth. This project will try to find out how many and which children are developing Type 2 diabetes. This is important for modelling current health-care strategies so that doctors know how many children they will have to treat over the next decade. It is also important for the future so that doctors and hospitals can be ready for the other health problems that can happen to people with Type 2 diabetes. As this problem is relatively new in the childhood and adolescent population, it is important to start looking at ways to prevent this problem occurring in other children as well as stopping the development of other health problems in those with established disease.
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Childhood obesity pooling project (COPP) (2007-2009).
Even though many more children are obese now than ever before, only around 5% of children in any one community study are affected. This means that even in a large study of 2,000 children, only around 100 would be classified as obese. This is enough for many important research questions, but not nearly enough for others. If data were pooled from five projects, then 500 children could be studied – without the expense of massive and very costly new studies that are large enough.
COPP is a national project planning to combine longitudinal data from Australasian population childhood obesity studies. It aims to help understand important questions such as:
- What predicts whose obesity improves, and whose worsens over time?
- Can we better predict which obese children develop rare complications?
- How do various family characteristics influence obesity-related sickness?
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Does hyperphagia play a role in the development of childhood obesity? 2008-2009
This study is comparing the level of hyperphagia (overeating) between three important groups of obese children – those with simple lifestyle-related obesity, those with obesity associated with intellectual disability, and those with Prader-Willi Syndrome (a genetic disorder that causes over eating and other health problems).
Further understanding of the biological mechanisms behind the development of obesity in children would have enormous potential to inform clinical practice for individuals with lifestyle-related obesity.
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Assessment of cardiac function in children with obesity-related Type 2 diabetes. 2007-2009
Type 2 diabetes is associated with numerous other health problems, including heart disease. Because Type II diabetes has only recently emerged in adolescence, there are no established childhood treatment guidelines. Published protocols suggest the regular assessment of ‘traditional’ cardiovascular risk factors, such as blood fat levels and blood pressure, should be performed along with monitoring the patient’s diabetes. In the Department of Cardiology at the Royal Children’s Hospital more modern methods of assessment of cardiac function are now available. We aim to compare the heart function of children with obesity-related Type II diabetes to that of children with obesity alone.
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