November 2, 2001
Other Illnesses
Question from Singapore:
My one year old daughter, who had diabetes which required insulin when she was born and resolved when she was five months old, is developing quite well. We have taken her to several doctors, one of whom said that she may need insulin later, maybe around age 10, which makes me always worry about her future. Is it true? Have you ever seen such case? What’s your opinion on it?
Since this is very rare, I find it very difficult to find a person to talk to about it or to locate any information about it from books. I am sure that the parents of the minority group of children like my daughter have the same feeling. So, I just wonder whether we can borrow a “link” from your website to provide information to the desperate parents like me? I am willing to provide any help I can.
Answer:
Transient Neonatal diabetes (TND) is, as you say, a rare condition occurring in about 1:400,000 births in Caucasian families. It is also commonly associated with paternally derived abnormalities of chromosome 6. Diabetes may develop in later life, but since it is type�2 and not type�1A (autoimmune), insulin would not necessarily be needed.There is almost no reported information on the long term outcome.
Most of the recent reports have come from Britain, and to review these, you might do best to search PubMed under ‘transient neonatal diabetes’.
DOB
[Editor’s comment: You can always feel free to refer people to this website. If they use the search feature and enter “transient neonatal” diabetes they can find answers to other questions on this topic.
SS]
