June 21, 2023 – The FDA has approved the drugs Jardiance and Synjardy to be used by children ages 10 and older with type 2 diabetes.
More than 30,000 children within the United States are affected by type 2 diabetes and health officials expect that number to rise to 220,000 children by 2060, the FDA said in a Press release.
Until now, the drug metformin was the one other oral treatment option for type 2 diabetes in children. Type 2 diabetes is a condition during which the body cannot properly process sugar, most of which comes from food. Both Jardiance and Synjardy contain a drug called empagliflozin, which increases the discharge of glucose within the urine. Synjardy also accommodates metformin. The drugs are supposed to be taken together with a healthy weight loss program and exercise.
Both drugs are already approved by the FDA to be used in adults with type 2 diabetes. Synjardy was approved in 2015 and Jardiance in 2014. Both not only help control blood sugar levels, but have also been shown to have positive effects on the cardiovascular system in adults.
The recent approval was based on the outcomes of a study of 157 children ages 10 to 17 with type 2 diabetes that was not well controlled, the FDA said in its press release. That study was accomplished in May and the FDA approved the drug under fast-track review based on the outcomes.
Health authorities are concerned concerning the number of kids diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Among adolescents aged 10 to 19, the CDC According to 2001 data, 34 out of 100,000 people were affected by the disease. This rate rose to 67 out of 100,000 in 2017. Type 2 diabetes in children disproportionately affects black, Hispanic and Native American children.
The Mayo Clinic According to Dr., it remains to be unclear what causes type 2 diabetes in some people, although family history and genes play a task. Untreated diabetes could cause heart and vascular problems, stroke, nerve damage, kidney disease and vision problems, even blindness.
“Until recently, young children and adolescents almost never developed type 2 diabetes, which is why it was previously referred to as adult-onset diabetes,” the CDC explains on its Diabetes prevention website“About one-third of all American adolescents are now overweight. This problem is closely linked to the increase in children with type 2 diabetes, some of whom are as young as ten years old.”