[Starving in childhood and diabetes mellitus in elderly age].

Abstract

The long-term consequences of the protracted starvation or inadequate nutrition of children is a problem in which considerable interest has been shown in recent decades. Between June 1941 and January 1944 the civilian population of Leningrad was besieged for two and a half years. The non-combatant population of this large European city lived through lengthy periods of starvation or malnutrition against a background of additional complex stress factors (including cold, bombing, death of relatives and acquaintances, and lack of means of transport and communication). It may be assumed that the health in adulthood of those who were children and young people in Leningrad during the siege differed from that of people of the same age who were spared those extreme conditions. Impact of starvation in childhood on prevalence rate of diabetes mellitus in elderly age, time of onset, clinical features of the disease course were studied. The results confirm that insulin-independent diabetes without obesity develops more often and earlier in women who got through the Siege of Leningrad in their childhood. Health status of elderly people who underwent continuous starvation in their childhood is the actual problem, because health status of young people in this country who got through 90's, when one of three children in the age of 2 years starved, suggests developing of medical and social problems because of forthcoming changes in the illness patterns of the population in modern Russia.