ABSTRACT
While obesity, ancestry, family history of diabetes, insulin resistance, and puberty are all risk
factors for pediatric-onset type 2 diabetes (T2D), identifying the subset of youth at greatest risk of
advancing from “prediabetes” to T2D and the mechanisms underlying the deterioration remain
elusive. This lack of specificity defies the medical community's ability to 1) direct care to the youth
at greatest risk of pediatric onset T2D and 2) develop targeted interventions. The particularly
aggressive nature of pediatric T2D and the unique hormonal milieu of the adolescent suggest
while the mechanisms underlying adult-onset T2D in adults resonate in pediatric T2D, additional
perturbances are operative. Our team proposes to collaborate in a multi-center study, informed
by partnerships with family and community members, to define clinically accessible metrics of
increased diabetes risk as well as potential mechanisms that compromise the normal adaptations
to insulin resistance during adolescence. We propose a longitudinal study leveraging a 3-hour,
multi-sample oral glucose tolerance test performed at baseline, 18-months, and 36-months in
obese pubertal youth with pre-diabetes to 1) test the utility of the one-hour glucose in predicting
T2D and deterioration in insulin secretion, 2) perform extensive phenotyping for testing the
relationships of changes in insulin secretion (early phase and second phase), insulin sensitivity,
incretin secretion, glucagon suppression, hepatic glucose clearance, and free fatty flux with
emergence of T2D. The contributions of genetic variants, in utero environment, visceral adipose
accumulation, eating behaviors, mental health issues, social determinants of health, diet, physical
activity, sleep and COVID infection to perturbances in insulin secretion and sensitivity will be
tested. Home health care workers will provide additional critical insight into the home environment.
Glucose-potentiated arginine stimulation tests will be conducted in subsets of participants in
whom glucose homeostasis is preserved, worsens, or advances to T2D. This study is anticipated
to specify useful indicators of T2D risk and advance our understanding of the underpinnings of
progressive defects in insulin secretion and sensitivity to inform individualized programs aimed at
interrupting emergence of T2D.