The number of children globally with diabetes may have spiked 40 percent over the past three decades, which has seen calls for Kiwis to change their lifestyle.
New Chinese research, which followed 1.5 million children over just short of 30 years, found both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are increasing - which will have an impact worldwide.
The research found a 39.4 increase in the number of children with diabetes globally. By 2019, there were 227,580 kids with diabetes across the world - which researchers said resulted in 5390 deaths.
They added the largest increase in cases happened in lower sociodemographic-indexed regions - areas with lower economy, education, and fertility rates.
Liggins Institute professor of paediatric endocrinology and insulin sensitivity expert Wayne Cutfield told AM New Zealand has one of the fastest climbing rates - which is concerning.
"We've been collecting data for almost 50 years, the rate of type 1 diabetes in children has marched up 3 percent per year, doesn't sound much, but it compounds," he told co-host Ryan Bridge.
"So over almost 50 years, that's a 150 percent increase in type 1 diabetes and that's not showing any signs of slowing down, it just keeps marching up. So we've got type 1 in children marching up but we've also got type 2 rearing its head and beginning to march up in children."
Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are chronic diseases, but type 1 is a lifelong auto-immune condition where people must replace insulin to survive, while remission from type 2 can sometimes be achieved by lifestyle changes and weight loss.
Cutfield said there are multiple factors that lead to type 1 diabetes, including genetics, diet, environment, early exposure and other lifestyle factors.
"It's a bit like the tumba-lock on a safe and that you have to have all the numbers as you spin to the left and right all lined up to open the safe and get diabetes," he said. "So you have to have an alignment between all of these factors, quite what they all are and how important each is we haven't completely untangled and while we haven't got it untangled, the rates of diabetes continue to just keep marching up."
Cutfield explained there is a correlation between what type of diabetes a parent has and what their child has.
"We're seeing a lot of our children with type 2 diabetes, their parents have type 2 diabetes. Their parents tend to have a problem with their weight, as do their children," he explained. "So the types tend to align, if you have a parent with type 1 or a close family member with type 1, your chances of having type 1 jump up."
Cutfield believes the way to fix the growing problem, especially in New Zealand, is by changing lifestyles.
"You're talking about type 2 diabetes… that is escalating and it's out of control in adults," he told AM. "So it's really about changing lifestyles. It's easy to say and it's really hard to do but it's managing your diet and increasing activity.
"As humans, we're hedonists. We love the things we shouldn't eat and we hate to exercise. So it's trying to change those behaviours and habits that are the big thing."
Watch the full interview with Wayne Cutfield in the video above.
