Experts are becoming increasingly concerned about the growing number of people in their 20s and 30s coping with type 2 diabetes, which used to be rarely seen in those under 40.

As diabetes becomes more prevalent in young people, the long-term complications of the condition cardiovascular problems like high blood pressure and high cholesterol, nerve damage, blindness and kidney failure are more likely to occur at younger ages, too, says David Kendall, chief scientific and medical officer for the American Diabetes Association (ADA).

“Children and young adults, and young middle-aged people, are the groups in which the rates are apparently growing the fastest,” Kendall says.

Headlines – Verizon – Diabetes becomes a scourge of the young