More and more children in the United States are prescribed medication for chronic diseases, according to a study published in the November issue of Pediatrics. The situation is even worse than it seems at the first look as more kids are being prescribed drugs for conditions seen primarily in adults such as obesity-related diseases.

“We've got a lot of sick children. What we've been seeing in adults, we're also now seeing in kids,” says author Emily Cox, senior director of research with Express Scripts, which administers drug benefit programs for private insurance plans.

The findings were based on insurance claims for 3.2 million children aged 5 to 19. According to them, use of drugs for type-2 diabetes doubled in children, while cholesterol-lowering medications rose by 15 percent between 2002 and 2005. More exactly, six out of 10,000 children are suffering from diabetes, a condition closely linked to obesity. That suggests that at least 23,000 privately insured children in the US are now taking diabetes medications, the researchers said. And the bad news doesn’t end here, as obesity rate is on the rise both in adults and children. According to recent statistics, one third of US children and about 17 percent obese and the future does not look promising.

About 176,500 children and adolescents younger than 20 have diabetes, and 2 million teenagers have blood glucose levels higher than normal, a condition called pre-diabetes, according to the latest statistics of the American Diabetes Association.

The study also found that girls were more than twice as likely to be taking a diabetes medication as boys, even though girls aren’t more likely to have the disease. Cox suggested this may be because girls visit the doctor twice as much as boys. She also warned that unless these children make major changes, such as eating healthier and exercising more, they could be facing a lifetime of illness.

“These are not antibiotics that they take for seven to 10 days. These are drugs that many are taking for the rest of their lives.”

High blood pressure medications saw a more moderate growth, 1.8 percent. High blood pressure is also closely linked to obesity.

As for other conditions, the study found that medicines for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder increased by more than 40 percent, while the number of asthma prescriptions was up nearly 47 percent.

There is still good news in all these troublesome findings. The rise of prescription use indicates that more children are being diagnosed and doctors are increasingly using medication to treat these conditions.

“Our findings indicate that we, the doctors, are doing a better job of screening children and diagnosing chronic conditions. A great example of this is blood pressure, where there has been a big push to identify and treat children in need,” said. Donna R. Halloran, M.D., MSPH, assistant professor of pediatrics at Saint Louis University School of Medicine.