a prevention campaign against type 1 diabetes, which affects 30,000 children and adolescents

Spotting the signs of type 1 diabetes as quickly as possible can save lives. Every year, four out of ten children arrive at the emergency room too late.

Every year in France, 1 200 children arrive at the emergency room in serious condition due to diabetes that was not diagnosed in time. The Aid to Young Diabetics association is therefore launching an information campaign on the symptoms which should alert those around them, because for type diabetes 1, which often begins in childhood, diet has nothing to do with the onset of the disease which affects 30 000 children and adolescents.

Type 1 diabetes is most common in children and has nothing to do with an unbalanced diet, as evidenced by Maxence, 16 years old. The first signs of his illness appeared when he was still a seemingly healthy little boy.

“I was 5 years old so I was really small, I ate a lot and yet I was losing weight so it wasn’t normal. I had also started wetting the bed again although at 5 years old normally you should stop.

Maxence, 16 years old

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“I have almost no memory of my life before diabetes. For me, diabetes is a total part of my life.” confides Maxence. There were indeed signals that her mother Alice admits she did not immediately know how to interpret. “Maxence was a little boy full of life and at 5 years old he started wetting the bed again, every night he was soaked from head to toe, such enormous quantities. A little guy of 5 years old he stayed in the toilet and We could hear him urinating as if it were an adult’s bladder, it was quite impressive. Looking back, we say to ourselves that if we had known these signs, we ourselves would have reacted much more quickly.

When a child starts urinating in large quantities and drinking a lot, you should actually think about type 1 diabetes. It is an autoimmune disease that destroys the insulin cells that are supposed to absorb sugar. The body then no longer has fuel. You must therefore immediately go to a doctor at the first symptoms, as recalled in the prevention spot broadcast by Aide aux Jeunes Diabétiques.

This is also confirmed by Dr Jacques Beltrand, diabetologist, pediatrician at Necker hospital in Paris.
“The healthcare professional must immediately measure the quantity of sugar in the child’s blood. It’s easy, it’s done with a small sample from the fingertip. We can also look for the excessive presence of sugar in the child’s blood. urine.

“If these two tests show too much sugar either in the blood or in the urine, the child must be sent immediately to the pediatric emergency room.”

Dr Jacques Beltrand

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And be careful not to waste precious time by going to have a fasting blood sugar test in a laboratory. Every year, four out of ten children arrive at the emergency room too late, sometimes in a coma, because their diabetes was not detected and treated in time.