How young can you die of diabetes?

Answer 1

The quick accurate answer to the literal question is: Even infants as young as a few weeks old have died of diabetes.However, a question like this usually is asked in a context that contains some implied constraints and conditions. For example, the asker might really want to know, "if a child is diagnosed with type 1 Diabetes, rescued from ketoacidosis, and is started on treatment and takes his insulin, could he die of the diabetic complications that adults die of at a young age anyway?" The answer to this question is that the usual diabetic complications that can cause death in diabetic adults (heart attacks, strokes, infections, kidney failure), hardly ever occur in teenagers. Answers to variations of this and descriptions of rarer risks depend on the asker and the answerer and cannot be completely covered in this forum. Ask your pediatric endocrinologist if you want a fuller answer.