Bone size normalizes in young diabetics: study

Children with type 1 or "insulin-dependent" diabetes have transient impaired bone growth that normalizes over time, according to study findings.

"Studies on bone development in children with type 1 diabetes have generated conflicting results," Dr. Susanne Bechtold and colleagues from University Children's Hospital, Munich, Germany, note in the journal Diabetes Care.

They studied the long-term effects of type 1 diabetes on bone development in 41 children who were an average age of about 10 years old and had type 1 diabetes for an average of about 4 years.

They found that, at the first evaluation, the children were shorter than normal but height normalized by the second evaluation.

Parameters of bone size were low in the whole cohort at first. But at a second measurement, obtained at a mean age of 15.44 years, the authors found that bone size had normalized.

"There exists no so-called 'diabetic osteopathy,' at least in children and adolescents," Bechtold told Reuters Health. "There is only a temporary lower bone mass which normalizes with time since manifestation," she said.

"Additionally, there seems to be no higher fracture rate in children with type 1 diabetes," she reported.

Bechtold also noted that the study contained only a few patients with poorly controlled diabetes. "Therefore, we cannot exclude an affected bone development with poor metabolic control over a prolonged time," she said.

SOURCE: Diabetes Care August, 2007.