The USC research team, which is conducting expansive studies on the patterns of metabolic change among Latino children and teens, presented initial results from their investigations today at the 2003 Annual Meeting for the North American Association for the Study of Obesity, or NAASO. Their findings highlight a weighty quandary for the nation: How to help Latino children who are being hit especially hard by a vicious circle of obesity, insulin resistance, metabolic challenges and heightened disease risk.

"Obesity is now a critical, common nutritional problem in children," says Michael I. Goran, Ph.D., professor of preventive medicine and physiology and biophysics at the Keck School and study presenter. "It disproportionately affects minority groups and is the major contributor to the recent emergence of type 2 diabetes among children. We need to do something now to understand and prevent these chronic diseases."

Reports have recently drawn attention to the nation's mounting problem of expanding waistlines. The latest estimates suggest that nearly a third of African-American and Latino kids are overweight, and many are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes-once exclusively an adult disease-during puberty.

Type 2 diabetes is a metabolic problem that results when the body cannot make enough insulin or its cells become resistant to insulin. Insulin is a hormone the body uses to bring glucose, or sugar, from the blood into tissues to be used as an energy source.

Keck School researchers wanted to better understand causes of metabolic problems among Latino children. Latinos are twice as likely as non-Latino whites t
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Contact: Jon Weiner
jonweine@usc.edu
323-442-2830
University of Southern California
14-Oct-2003