I am 12 years old, I weigh 190 pounds, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes 13 months ago, and I have a fatty liver and pancreas. I was wondering if diabetes causes obesity or fatty organs.

The first thing that stands out in your story that you are at least 60 pounds overweight for your age. This, in itself, suggests that you really could have type 2 diabetes which is becoming increasingly common in children in the U.S. It is also strongly associated with obesity and a lifestyle that involves very little physical exercise. The treatment, which is to lose weight by dieting, sounds easy, but is in fact terribly hard. It also involves starting to take exercise which is going to be hard too.

It is possible of course that you do indeed have type 1 diabetes which, unlike type 2 is not caused by being overweight. In that case, you should have had a test called an antibody test at the time you were first diagnosed. If this was positive then you do indeed have type 1, but you still have the problem of being overweight as well which you will have to deal with too. If the test was negative or if it was not done, then I am fairly sure you have type 2.

You and your parents are going to need to talk all this over with the doctor and make a plan to get help from a dietitian about the weight problem. Finally, if other members of your family are overweight too and you are not on insulin, this would tend to confirm that you have type 2.

DOB