Diabetes Risk Increased with Atypical Antipsychotics in Children

Incidence of diabetes mellitus (DM) in children on atypical antipsychotics (AAs) is not well known. These researchers examined incident cases of DM in such children via retrospective chart diagnosis or pharmacy records of prescribed DM medications, or via an additional laboratory criterion (hemoglobin A_1c, ≥7%; fasting blood sugar level, ≥126 mg/dL; or random blood sugar level, ≥200 mg/dL). The database comprised more than 700,000 children (age range, 5–18 years). Comparison groups were children not receiving psychotropic medications and children receiving antidepressants.

Primary DM criteria were met by 12 of 9636 children with new AA prescriptions, 19 of 26,265 children with new antidepressant prescriptions, and 26 of 38,544 children not t…