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Diabetes in children, exercise for ME and drinking in Moldova

Our roundup of the health news headlines on Friday 18 February.

Studies reported in the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph point to a crisis in childhood diabetes. The Mail reports a 75% rise in Type 2 diabetes in the young linked to obesity, while the Telegraph suggests a quarter of children with type I diabetes go undiagnosed until they have an attack of diabetic ketoacidosis.

The Mail says research reported in Nutrition and Food Science journal, which analysed more than 60 studies into children's nutrition, warns that millions of youngsters get as much as a third of their calories from junk food rather than the recommended allowance of less than 10%.

Research reported in the Telegraph says that of children diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes before the age of five, 35% have had DKA. The study by researchers at Oxford´s John Radcliffe Hospital is published in the BMJ.

Still with the Telegraph the biggest study yet suggests exercise and therapy can help ME sufferers. Cognitive behaviour therapy combined with graded exercise therapy is more effective and less harmful than previously thought, according to the research by a team from Barts and the London School of Medicine, published in The Lancet.

In the study of 640 patients, those who were given the two treatments together were found to be more capable of physical activity a year later despite lacking confidence in the plan before it started.

Most papers today carry the news that Britain is 16th in the league table of booziest nations. The Daily Express focuses on beer. It says World Health Organisation figures show we drink the equivalent of 500 pints of beer a year. Beer accounts for 43% of our consumption, followed by wine (30%) and spirits (21%).

Top of the global booze list? Moldova in eastern Europe. Thanks to The Independent, we learn that Moldovans put away 18.2 litres of pure alcohol each per year - nearly three times the global average - much of it bootleg alcohol.

Spotted a story we've missed? Let us know in the comments and we'll update the digest throughout the day...

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