Slower Brain Growth Linked To Type 1 Diabetes in Children

Children with Type 1 diabetes may have slower brain growth when compared to children without diabetes, according to recent findings published in the journal Diabetes.

"Our results show the potential vulnerability of young developing brains to abnormally elevated glucose levels even when the diabetes duration has been relatively brief," said Nelly Mauras, chief, division of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism at the Nemours Children's Clinic in the U.S., in a news release.

The researchers examined the exposure of hyperglycemia, also known as high blood sugar, and how it can be significantly detrimental to the development of the brain.

For the study, researchers looked at brain development in children, aged four to nine years, with Type 1 diabetes, by using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and various cognitive tests.

Findings revealed that the brains of children with diabetes had slower overall and regional growth of both grey and white matter when compared to children without diabetes.

Although there was no significant difference seen in cognitive function between the groups after 18 months, the brain imaging results suggest that children with T1D hold differences in brain maturation compared to children without diabetes, which sometimes involved the visual-spatial processing and working memory areas.

"This is the thing that parents always worry about when it comes to a child with a chronic illness," said study co-author Karen Winer, M.D., pediatric endocrinologist at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)," concluded Mauras, via Psych Central. "Does it affect their brain? The good news here is that there may be some viable solutions on the horizon that parents should be aware of."

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