Diabetes death rates higher in black youths

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) — During the past two and a half decades, consistent racial disparities have existed in diabetes mortality among young Americans, with death rates for black youths significantly higher those for white youths.

"Further study is needed to discern the specific reasons for increased diabetes mortality in black youths," write health officials in the November 16th issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the United States, diabetes affects 18 per 10,000 children and adolescents younger than age 20.

CDC investigators analysed deaths between 1979 and 2004 with an underlying cause of diabetes among US children and teenagers 1 to 19 years old.

"Although diabetes deaths among youths were rare during 1979-2004, numbering less than an average of 80 per year for the entire period, diabetes death rates for black youths were consistently higher than those for white youths," they report.

"Additionally, whereas diabetes mortality did not change substantially for white youths during 1994-2004, death rates for black youths increased significantly," the investigators further report.

From 2003 to 2004, the annual average diabetes death rate per million youths was 2.46 for black youths compared with 0.91 for white youths.

Infants of obese mothers have higher mortality risk

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) — Obese women are at increased risk of having their infant die soon after birth, especially if premature rupture of membranes (PROM) occurs before full-term, according to a report in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.

These findings may indicate there is a problem in how obese women with preterm PROM births are treated, Dr. Ellen A. Nohr from University of Aarhus, Denmark told Reuters Health. It is also possible that "preterm infants of obese mothers may be more susceptible when they are not protected by the membranes."

PROM occurs when the membranes rupture before labour begins, which is usually followed by labour and delivery.

Umbilical cord compression is the primary risk for the foetus, while infection within the uterus is the major complication in the woman.

Nohr and colleagues used the Danish National Birth Cohort to investigate the association between prepregnancy obesity and infant mortality, with focus upon different types of preterm births.

The infant mortality rate was higher in infants of overweight and obese mothers than in infants of normal-weight mothers, the authors report, even after consideration of other maternal and infant risk factors.