FRIDAY, Dec. 28 (HealthDay News) -- For the first time, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) has come out in support of low-carbohydrate diets for people with diabetes who want to manage their weight.

The ADA voiced its support of low-calorie or low-carbohydrate diets in its newly published 2008 clinical practice recommendations.

The recommendations are intended to help physicians guide their patients in diabetes prevention and management.

The ADA estimates that more than 20 million children and adults are living with diabetes in the United States. However, about one-third of those people have the disease but have not yet been diagnosed, according to the association.

Prior to the release of the 2008 recommendations, the ADA did not support low-carbohydrate diets for diabetes management due to a lack of evidence supporting their safety and effectiveness.

Whether a person can stick with a diet is more important than the diet's theme, according to the association. Low-carbohydrate and low-calorie diets are equally effective in helping people lose weight over a year. However, the recommendations do also include guidelines for monitoring the lipid profiles and kidney health of people who choose a low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet.

The recommendations continue to support sustained, moderate weight loss and increased physical activity for people who are overweight, obese, living with diabetes or at risk for becoming diabetic.

"The risks of overweight and obesity are well-known. We recognize that people are looking for realistic ways to lose weight," Ann Albright, president of health care and education for the ADA, said in a prepared statement. "The evidence is clear that both low-carbohydrate and low-fat calorie restricted diets result in similar weight loss at one year. We're not endorsing either of these weight-loss plans over any other method of losing weight. What we want health-care providers to know is that it's important for patients to choose a plan that works for them, and that the health-care team support their patients' weight-loss efforts and provide appropriate monitoring of patients' health."

Being overweight and physically inactive both increase the risk of type 2 diabetes, according to the ADA. Being overweight or obese also make the treatment of type 1 and type 2 diabetes more difficult. The 2008 recommendations state that all adults who are overweight and have an additional risk factor for diabetes should be tested for diabetes or pre-diabetes.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people who have pre-diabetes can avoid diabetes if they lose 7 percent of their body weight and get more than 150 minutes of activity a week.

Developing and maintaining a disaster kit for diabetes self-management is also included in the new recommendations, along with revised guidelines for care of diabetes in older adults.

More information

To learn more about diabetes, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

FRIDAY, Dec. 28 (HealthDay News) -- As more and more American children are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, another serious problem is threatening their health.

Children and teens diagnosed with type 2 diabetes are five times more likely to develop kidney disease later in life than those who develop diabetes as adults, a recent study found.

The findings underscore the importance of preventing -- or at least delaying -- the onset of type 2 diabetes, doctors say.

"Since the development of diabetic kidney disease is strongly dependent on the duration of diabetes, developing diabetes in youth leads to a high risk of kidney disease in early- to mid-adulthood," said study author Dr. Robert G. Nelson, a staff clinician with the U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).

"For example," he said, "a 15-year-old person with 10 years of type 2 diabetes has the same risk of kidney disease as a 55-year-old with 10 years of type 2 diabetes."

Diabetes is becoming increasingly prevalent among children and teens, largely due to the obesity epidemic. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that among new cases of childhood diabetes, up to 43 percent are type 2 disease.

While type 2 diabetes can affect children of any race or ethnic group, it's more common among non-white individuals, the CDC reports. The Pima Indians of Arizona currently have the highest recorded rates of diabetes in the world, at 50.9 per 1,000 individuals, according to the CDC.

Diabetes is the most common cause of kidney failure. Initially, small amounts of albumin, a blood protein, begin to leak into the urine. As the amount of albumin in the urine increases, the filtering function of the kidneys begins to decline. It may take 15 to 25 years for kidney failure to occur. Native Americans, blacks and Hispanics have higher rates of kidney failure from diabetes, the NIDDK said.

Nelson and his colleagues examined the relationship between a person's age at the onset of diabetes and the likelihood that they would have "end-stage renal disease," or kidney failure. The study, published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association, was based on data collected over four decades from more than 1,800 members of the Pima and closely related Papago Indian tribes. The researchers compared people who were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes before the age of 20 with those who developed the disease between ages 25 and 55.

Breaking down the numbers by age range, people who developed type 2 diabetes before age 20 were eight times more likely to experience kidney failure between 25 and 34 than those diagnosed after 20. And the younger diabetics were four times more likely to have kidney failure between the ages of 45 and 54 than those diagnosed at an older age.

Dr. Pascale H. Lane is a diabetic neuropathy specialist and associate chairwoman for research at the University of Nebraska Medical Center's Department of Pediatrics. She believes that patients and parents of children with diabetes need to be aware of the potential complications of type 2 diabetes and ways to minimize the risk.

"Nephropathy [kidney failure] may be prevented by strict control of blood sugar levels and by not smoking," Lane said. "Diagnosing and treating high blood pressure early and aggressively may also prevent or slow the development of this kidney disease."

Efforts also need to focus on preventing type 2 diabetes in children through lifestyle changes that emphasize weight loss and increased exercise, Nelson added.

"The explosion of obesity in children and adolescents is a cause for great concern and must be reversed," he said. "Calorie-dense fast foods must be replaced by healthy alternatives provided in reasonable portions, and hours of TV watching must be replaced by activities that require exercise."

More information

Visit the National Kidney Foundation for more on diabetes and kidney disease  .