Wellington, May 14 NZPA - Research on Auckland teenagers has shown that girls with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes are more likely to develop heart problems than healthy children or even girls with the type 1 juvenile form of the disease.

"This study is the first to demonstrate that important cardiac abnormalities occur early in adolescent-onset type 2 diabetes and highlights the potential for higher cardiovascular risk," the researchers said.

"If left unchecked, it is likely that these changes will lead to the development of clinically overt cardiovascular disease."

Gillian Whalley, Katrina Poppe and Robert Doughty, of Auckland University, Silmara Gusso, Paul Hofman and Wayne Cutfield, of the Liggins Institute at the university, and Chris Baldi, of Northern Arizona University, have published their findings in the US-based Diabetes Care journal.

Their study highlighted a potential high cardiovascular risk for teenagers with type 2 diabetes, even though the disease has been present for just a few years.

The researchers studied eight girls with type 2 diabetes and 11 with type 1 disease, and compared them with a control group, of nine lean and 11 fat girls who did not have diabetes.

Echocardiography revealed that the left ventricular dimensions and left ventricular mass were greater in the type 2 diabetics group than in the other groups. Left ventricular hypertrophy and diastolic dysfunction can eventually lead to heart failure.

Both diabetic groups showed impairments during the diastolic phase of heart contraction, but only the type 2 group had reduced function during the systolic phase, the team reported.

One of the eight girls with type 2 diabetes had no cardiac abnormalities, and 63 percent of the group had left ventricular dilation, 75 percent had elevated left ventricular mass, and 38 percent had left atrial dilation.

The same abnormalities were almost non-existent in the lean healthy and type 1 diabetic groups, and even in the overweight control group, many girls had no cardiac abnormalities.

The girls with type 2 diabetes weighed more than the other girls, though the groups were similar in age and height. On average, type 2 diabetics weighed 107.2kg compared with 80.6kg in non-diabetic fat girls in the control group with the next highest weight. NZPA WGT kca mgr gt