To evaluate the effect of combined exercise training on metabolic control, physical fitness and quality of life in adolescents with type 1 diabetes. Design: A double-blind randomized controlled trial with patients receiving combined aerobic and strength or no training. Setting: University Hospital Ghent (Belgium). Subjects: Sixteen children with type 1 diabetes were randomized into a control group (n ¼ 8) and an intervention group (n ¼ 8). Interventions: Patients participated twice a week for 20 weeks in the combined aerobic and strength group. The control group continued their normal daily activities. Main measures: Before and after the intervention anthropometric variables (weight, length, BMI, body composition), metabolic control (glycaemia, HbA1c, daily insulin injected), aerobic capacity (peak Vo 2 , peak power, peak heart rate, 6-minute walk distance), strength (1 repetition maximum of upper and lower limb, hand grip strength, muscle fatigue resistance, sit-to-stand) and quality of life (SF-36) were assessed. Results: At baseline, none of the measured parameters differed significantly between the two groups. There was no significant evolution in the groups concerning anthropometric indices, glycaemia and HbA1c. However, the daily doses of insulin injected were significantly lowered in the training group (0.96 IU/kg.day pre versus 0.90 IU/kg.day post; P50,05), while it was increased in the control group. Physical fitness increased significantly in the training group. General health, vitality and role emotional had a tendency to improve. Conclusion: Combined exercise training seemed to lower daily insulin requirement and improve physical fitness, together with better well-being.

Glomerular hyperfiltration is associated with puberty and increasing ACR levels and is predictive of MA independent of HbA1c. This suggests that factors other than poor glycemic control may be involved in the pathogenesis of early diabetic nephropathy and early intervention with medical therapy to reduce GFR may be beneficial even before onset of MA.

Background: Our primary purpose was to determine the normal range and variability of blood volume (BV) in healthy children, in order to provide reference values during childhood and adolescence. Our secondary aim was to correlate these vascular volumes to body size parameters and pubertal stages, in order to determine the best normalisation parameter.

It became clear that, although children with type 1 diabetes mellitus could be expected to run a potential high caries risk taking into account the diabetes-associated biological and behavioural alterations, no significant differences were observed regarding caries experience and dental care between diabetic children and healthy controls. The level of untreated dental decay among the diabetic children is, however, considerably high, which was reflected by a significant lower dental attendance.

Utilizing equipment standard available in the clinical laboratory, the use of home-sampled dried VAMS and DBS is not a reliable tool for the monitoring of HbA1c. However, perfect agreement between HbA1c measured on wet VAMS and capillary microsamples was obtained.