Tag: young adults

Categories : Metabolic DisordersTags :

High Cholesterol and Insulin Resistance are Rising Among Young South Africans – What that Means for Public Health

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Elizeu Dias on Unsplash

Themba Titus Sigudu, University of the Witwatersrand

In a small mining town in South Africa’s Limpopo province, young people are showing worrying signs of diseases that were once thought to affect only older adults.

These include type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity and insulin resistance. This is not unique to Limpopo or South Africa. It reflects a global trend, where young adults in many low- and middle-income countries are increasingly experiencing early-onset metabolic diseases due to rapid urbanisation, lifestyle changes, unhealthy diets and reduced physical activity.

The World Health Organization says non-communicable diseases now account for 75% of all non-pandemic-related deaths globally. Also, 82% of premature deaths before age 70 occur in low- and middle-income countries.

I’m a public health researcher specialising in epidemiology, metabolic health, infectious diseases and environmental health. My colleagues and I conducted a study in the town of Lephalale and found that many young adults there have abnormal cholesterol levels. They also have reduced sensitivity to insulin, a condition known as insulin resistance.

Both are key risk factors for type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Our findings suggest that these health problems are appearing much earlier in life than expected. This is particularly concerning in communities undergoing rapid social and economic change, where access to health services and screening programmes remains limited.

New jobs, new lifestyles

Lephalale, formerly known as Ellisras, offers a window into these transitions. Once a quiet rural area in the north of South Africa, it has changed rapidly over the past two decades. It is now the site of expanding mining and industrial activities, driven by the expansion of coal mining operations and the development of power stations.

This industrial growth has attracted thousands of workers from surrounding provinces and neighbouring countries, bringing new economic opportunities. It is also reshaping daily life. Increasingly, residents are doing sedentary work and eating energy-dense diets, including fast food. These lifestyle transitions make Lephalale an important setting for studying emerging health risks in young adults.

Long hours sitting at work and reduced physical activity create fertile ground for metabolic disorders. When people eat more processed, high-fat, high-sugar foods and move less, the body begins storing excess energy as fat.

Over time, this can lead to weight gain, elevated blood glucose and abnormal cholesterol levels. These changes make it harder for the body to regulate insulin, causing insulin resistance, the first step towards type 2 diabetes. Also, inactivity and poor diet increase unhealthy cholesterol and triglycerides (types of fat in the blood), raising the risk of heart disease. In rapidly transitioning communities, these health shifts can happen quickly.

Non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and heart disease are now among the leading causes of death in South Africa. In 2020, diabetes was reported to be the second biggest underlying cause of death in South Africa, accounting for 6.6% of all deaths.

Our research

We examined 781 young adults aged 18 to 29 years living in Lephalale as part of a long-running study. We have been tracking health patterns in this community since 1992.

Participants provided fasting blood samples that were analysed for glucose, insulin and cholesterol levels. We grouped them into diabetic and non-diabetic categories based on clinical definitions used by the American Diabetes Association.

The results were striking:

  • Diabetic participants had significantly higher total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (the “bad” cholesterol) and triglycerides, and lower levels of high-density lipoprotein (the “good” cholesterol) than their non-diabetic peers.
  • Over half (52.7%) of the diabetic group had high total cholesterol, compared with 23% of non-diabetic participants.
  • Insulin resistance, when the body needs more insulin to manage blood sugar, was also much higher among diabetics.
  • Even some non-diabetic participants showed early signs of these metabolic changes.

Unhealthy cholesterol patterns and poor insulin sensitivity tend to occur together, each making the other worse. This combination sets the stage for early heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

Why young adults?

Most public-health strategies focus on older adults because that’s when chronic diseases usually become visible.

But our research adds to growing evidence that the seeds of non-communicable diseases are planted early, often in young adulthood or even adolescence.

Young adults in rural or semi-urban areas may seem healthy, yet many are already developing risks due to diet changes, stress and limited exercise opportunities. The modernisation of small towns, while positive economically, brings hidden health costs.

Without early detection, these individuals may enter middle age already carrying high risk of health problems. This will put pressure on health systems that are already stretched.

What makes this community unique?

Lephalale may be changing, but it still lacks many of the urban services, infrastructure and health resources found in South Africa’s big cities.

Health resources are scarce, and screening for cholesterol or insulin resistance is rare. Public clinics focus on infectious diseases such as HIV or tuberculosis. Silent metabolic disorders go unnoticed until symptoms appear.

Our study shows that rapid industrialisation without parallel investment in public-health education and preventive services risks creating a generation of young adults who are chronically unwell by their thirties.

What can be done?

Three priorities stand out:

Early screening and prevention

Regular cholesterol and glucose testing should be part of routine primary-care visits, especially for adults under 30. Mobile health campaigns, school outreach and workplace screenings could help identify those at risk.

Community-based education

Local awareness campaigns must make the link between diet, physical activity and metabolic health easy to understand. They should show, for example, how frequent consumption of fried or sugary foods contributes to cholesterol build-up and insulin resistance.

Healthy-environment policies

Urban planners and municipalities can support healthy lifestyles by ensuring there are safe spaces for exercise. They must also limit marketing of unhealthy foods, and encourage availability of affordable, nutritious options. Similar “health-in-all-policies” approaches have shown success in other countries. such as Finland’s long-running HiAP strategy, which reduced cardiovascular disease rates and improved population health outcomes.

Young people should be in peak health. Without intervention, today’s young adults risk becoming tomorrow’s chronic-disease patients, burdening families, workplaces and health systems.

Themba Titus Sigudu, Lecturer, University of the Witwatersrand

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Categories : Diet and Nutrition Metabolic DisordersTags :

Ultra-processed Food Intake Linked to Prediabetes in Young Adults

On By ModernMedia

Researchers tracked 85 young adults over a four-year period, finding that increases in ultra-processed food consumption were linked with elevated blood sugar and early signs of diabetes risk.

Photo by Jonathan Borba

More than half of calories consumed in the United States come from ultra-processed foods (UPFs), items like fast food and packaged snacks that are often high in sodium, sugar and unhealthy fats. In adults, research has clearly linked these foods to type 2 diabetes and other conditions, but few studies have explored their effects among youth.

Now, researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC have completed one of the first studies to examine the link between UPF consumption and how the body processes glucose, which is known to predict diabetes risk. By tracking changes over time, they gained insights into how dietary choices may influence key biological processes.

The researchers studied a group of 85 young adults over a four-year period. They found that an increase in UPF intake was associated with a higher risk for prediabetes, or early-stage high blood sugar that can lead to diabetes. Eating more UPFs was also linked to insulin resistance, where the body becomes less effective at using insulin to control blood sugar. The study, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, was just published in the journal Nutrition and Metabolism.

“Our findings show that even modest increases in ultra-processed food intake can disrupt glucose regulation in young adults at risk for obesity. These results point to diet as a modifiable driver of early metabolic disease, and an urgent target for prevention strategies among young people,” said senior author Vaia Lida Chatzi, MD, PhD, a professor of population and public health sciences and paediatrics and director of the ShARP Center at the Keck School of Medicine.

Early adulthood is a formative stage where people have reached physical maturity and are building habits that can persist for years. Trading packaged or restaurant meals for whole and raw foods like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains can reduce the likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes later in life.

“Young adulthood is a critical window for shaping long-term health,” Chatzi said. “By focusing on young adults, we have an opportunity to intervene early, before prediabetes and other risk factors become lifelong conditions.”

Signs of prediabetes

 The research included 85 young adults from the Metabolic and Asthma Incidence Research (Meta-AIR) study, part of the broader Southern California Children’s Health Study. Participants, aged 17–22, provided data at a baseline visit between 2014 and 2018 and a follow-up visit approximately four years later.

At each visit, participants reported everything they had eaten on one recent weekday and one recent weekend day. Researchers classified foods into two categories: UPFs (such as candy, soda, cereal, packaged spreads, flavored yogurts, and many restaurant foods) and foods that were not ultra-processed. They then calculated what percentage of each participant’s daily caloric intake came from UPFs.

The researchers also collected blood samples from participants before and after they consumed a sugary drink to test how effectively their body responded to blood sugar with insulin. They then conducted a statistical analysis to compare dietary changes with signs of prediabetes, adjusting for differences in age, sex, ethnicity and physical activity levels.

From baseline to follow-up, a 10% increase in UPF consumption was associated with a 64% higher risk for prediabetes and a 56% higher risk for problems with glucose regulation. Participants who reported eating more UPFs at their initial visit were also more likely to have elevated insulin levels at follow-up—an early sign of insulin resistance, where the body must produce more insulin to keep blood sugar in a healthy range.

Limiting ultra-processed foods

The study shows that the risks of UPFs extend to young adults, a group often overlooked in previous research.

“These findings indicate that ultra-processed food consumption increases the risk for pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes among young adults – and that limiting consumption of those foods can help prevent disease,” said the study’s first author, Yiping Li, a doctoral student in quantitative biomedical sciences at Dartmouth College who previously worked as a researcher at the Keck School of Medicine.

Future studies with larger groups and more detailed diet tracking can help clarify which foods pose the greatest risk for young adults, the researchers said. They also plan to continue investigating the biological mechanisms behind these links, including how specific nutrients in UPFs may influence insulin and blood sugar regulation.

Source: Keck School of Medicine of USC

Categories : OphthalmologyTags :

The Rise in Dry Eye Disease Among Young Adults

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Steinar Engeland on Unsplash

Researchers at Aston University have called for more advice to be given to young people about preventing dry eye disease, after a study carried out in conjunction with Oslo University Hospital and Sørlandet Hospital Trust in Norway found that 90% of participants had at least one sign of the condition in their eyes.

Dry eye disease occurs when the eyes do not make enough tears, or make poor-quality tears without sufficient lipid or mucus levels which leads to poor tear film stability and rapid evaporation. Sufferers may have gritty feeling eyes, itching or stinging in the eyes, red eyes, sensitivity to light and blurry vision. There are several risk factors for dry eye disease, including stress and wearing contact lenses. It is also more prevalent in females. In the 18-25 age group, a major risk factor is screen use.

The research, following 50 18-25-year-olds over time, was led by Dr Rachel Casemore at Aston University School of Optometry and is the first of its kind. It was published in The Ocular Surface. The researchers looked for symptoms of dry eye disease in the participants, studied lifestyle factors, and followed up with participants one year on to find out if there had been any progression of the condition.

The initial study showed that 56% of participants had dry eye disease, while 90% had at least one symptom of the condition. Around half of the participants in the study had lost at least 25% of a type of gland in the eye called the meibomian gland. These glands produce the outer lipid layer of the eye’s tear film, which is responsible for preventing evaporation of tears, and therefore keeps the tear film stable and the eye moist. One year on, the researchers found that there had been significant progression of dry eye disease in the study participants.

Additionally, the researchers found correlation found between how long the study group used screens and signs of dryness on the eye surface. The average screen use of participants was eight hours per day.

The researchers concluded that the evidence of dry eye disease symptoms and progression in the young adults in their study shows the need for early detection of potential signs, and the identification of those who may go on to develop dry eye disease. These individuals can then be advised on managing the condition before progression.

The progression and development of dry eye disease can be slowed by various methods. Dr Casemore says that the simplest ways are to take regular screen breaks, to carry out blink exercises to ensure the release of oils from the meibomian glands and to keep hydrated. A healthy, balanced diet, including sources of omega-3 fatty acids, such as oily fish, is also important, as is regular sleep patterns.

Dr Casemore suggests that those with irregular sleep patterns, such as those caused by sleep disorders or anxiety, should seek advice. People who wear contact lenses need to ensure they get regular check-ups to ensure optimum fitting, and that they adhere to their replacement schedule, wearing time schedule, cleaning regimes and safety advice, such as no sleeping, showering or swimming in contact lenses.

Dr Casemore said:

“It is concerning to note the increasing prevalence of dry eye disease signs and symptoms in young adults, which has been referred to as a ‘lifestyle epidemic’ by some researchers. Eye care practitioners are well placed to identify the clinical indicators of dry eye disease and counsel young adults around modifiable risk factors, such as screen use habits, sleeping habits, contact lens use, diet, blinking patterns, and management of stress levels.

“Our future research aims to continue investigation of the potential tear and meibomian gland oil biomarkers which were identified during the study and further explore the effect of diet on dry eye disease development.”

Source: Aston University