The researchers from University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver reported that non-hispanic white youth have the highest rate of diabetes of all racial/ethnic groups for children in the U.S.

According to their findings, which were presented by Dana Dabelea, M.D., Ph.D. at a JAMA media briefing in New York  type 1 diabetes is being the predominant kind of diabetes among youth.

The study is based on data from the SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth Study Group and the researchers noted that the disease was most prevalent in children between 10 and 14 and slightly higher in girls.

Also, the incidence rate was highest among 10- to 14-year-old youth (33.9), and slightly higher in females vs. males. Overall, the highest incidence rates of DM were observed among non-Hispanic white (26.1), African American (25.4), and American Indian youth (25.0), with lower rates among Hispanic and Asian-Pacific Islander youth, the authors concluded. The study included 2,435 multi-ethnic youth with newly diagnosed DM in 2002 and 2003, from 10 locations in the U.S.

“… taken together [with other studies], these data suggest that the incidence of type 1 DM may be increasing in the United States, consistent with worldwide trends,” the authors write. “We estimate that the annual number of newly diagnosed youth with type 1 DM in the United States is approximately 15,000.”