By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
New research has uncovered a dramatic jump in the number of children who are taking medication for chronic diseases, particularly those associated with obesity.
According to a report by USA Today, the number of children who are being medicated for type 2 diabetes – the kind that is closely linked to obesity – more than doubled from 2002 to 2005 to a rate of six out of every 10,000 children. This suggests that at least 23,000 privately insured children in the U.S. are now taking diabetes medications, according to the authors of a new study appearing in Pediatrics.
“We’ve got a lot of sick children,” says author Emily Cox, senior director of research with Express Scripts, which administers drug benefit programs for private insurance plans. “What we’ve been seeing in adults, we’re also now seeing in kids.”
Even though type 2 diabetes is usually adult-onset, Cox’s research found children as young as five who are being treated with prescription diabetes drugs.
Cox based her study on prescription records of nearly 4 million children a year, ages 5 to 19, covered by Express Scripts.
Unless these children make major changes — such as eating healthier and exercising more — they could be facing a lifetime of illness, Cox said.
“These are not antibiotics that they take for seven to 10 days,” Cox says. “These are drugs that many are taking for the rest of their lives.”
Researchers also found big increases in prescriptions for high cholesterol, asthma, attention deficit and hyperactivity. There was smaller growth for drugs for depression and high blood pressure.
One finding that Cox is unable to explain is why the increase in drugs for diabetes, attention deficit/hyperactivity and depression was higher in girls. The gender gap was particularly apparent in diabetes where Cox found that the number of boys taking medication grew by 39 percent while the number of girls using them climbed by 147 percent.
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