Type I diabetes 'missed in thousands of children'

(Source: The Telegraph, 18 February 2011)
A quarter of the 29,000 children with Type I diabetes in Britain are only diagnosed because they have an attack of Diabetic Ketoacidosis, or DKA, according to Dr Julie Edge, a consultant paediatric diabetologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

DKA, which usually only occurs when Type I diabetes is fully established, is an illness caused by dangerously high blood glucose levels. It can cause nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and rapid breathing, and potentially lead to a coma. Of children diagnosed with Type I diabetes before the age of five, 35 per cent have had DKA, said Dr Edge. Read more