A sour deal: Sambavi Pandian, 18, who was diagnosed with diabetes at age three.
Sambavi Pandian was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of three. The 18-year-old manages her diabetes well. “I refrain from eating sweets. Once in a while, I eat ice creams, but only sugar-free ones,” says Pandian, who is doing her bachelor's in animation at Vels University in Chennai.
Pandian, however, lives in constant fear of hypoglycaemia. “Nowadays I get hypo often. So I have to take care of myself all the time, which is very challenging,” she rues.
Teenage is a beautiful yet difficult phase. With type 1 diabetes, it can be a nightmare. However, advancements in medicine offer hope for children with diabetes.
Ambulatory Glucose Profile (AGP) is a method that can help a child avoid sugar swings. It involves a small device, the size of a coin, that comes with a sensor. “You put it on the upper arm and activate it,” says Dr R.M. Anjana of Dr. Mohan's Diabetes Specialities Centre, Chennai. “For two weeks, it measures your glucose every five minutes. At the end of two weeks, you download the data and get a 24-hour graph.” AGP can help prevent sugar spikes. “It shows the variation in sugar levels,” says Anjana. “You can see what you did right and what you did wrong. It is useful in type 2 diabetes also, but, it's particularly useful in children with type 1 diabetes.”
Insulin pumps can also help children deal with hypoglycaemia. The pump delivers insulin into the body continuously. Sensor-augmented pumps can help the child manage his blood sugar levels. “If the sugar is going low, the pump will trigger an alarm, before the child can go into hypo,” says Anjana. The latest pumps are more advanced. “When the sugar goes low, the pump will suspend insulin delivery so the child will not have hypoglycaemia,” she says.
The complications of the disease are worse in juvenile diabetes. “Children with diabetes can get any of the complications of diabetes like diabetic retinopathy or kidney problems if their sugar levels are not under control,” says Anjana.
Globally juvenile diabetes is more prevalent in developed nations. “It could be related to autoimmunity,” says Anjana. “One of the theories—what we call the hygiene hypothesis—is that children who get exposed to viruses will be protected against type 1 diabetes, whereas those raised in a sterile environment may be more prone to infection and as a result autoimmunity could set in. However, in India, type 1 diabetes is found even among youngsters in the lower socioeconomic strata. We do not fully understand the reasons for this.”
