Type II diabetes in young subjects. A study of 90 unrelated cases.

Type II, non insulin dependent diabetes mellitus is commonly diagnosed after the age of 45 years. For this reason it was previously called maturity onset diabetes. Type II diabetes occurring in young subjects has generally been described in selected pedigrees. The purpose of this work was to review data from all the unrelated type II diabetics (with fasting hyperglycemia) diagnosed before the age of 45 and observed in our department over the last four years. A total of 90 such patients including 44 men and 46 women were included in this study. Of 43 cases diagnosed before the age of 30, there were 30 women compared to only 16 women out of 47 cases diagnosed between 30 and 45 years (p less than 0.001). At the time of diagnosis 42 patients had a relative body weight lower than 120%. In 66,7% of the cases, one parent was a known diabetic. The rate of diabetes in the sibships was 50%. Differences in family history of diabetes were not observed in relation to age or weight at diagnosis. Comparison with a series of 150 conventional type II diabetics in whom diagnosis was made between 45 and 60 years of age showed a significantly greater frequency of obesity (86%) and fewer diabetic parent (36%). The mean apparent duration of diabetes was 14 years (range 5-42). Microangiopathy was not infrequent in these diabetic patients. Twenty-three patients had retinopathy, proliferative in 8 cases, and 3 were blind. Nine had renal insufficiency, severe in 3 cases.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)