Anna M. Gertig, Elżbieta NiechciaÅ, Bogda SkowroÅska and Piotr Fichna
The increasingly obesogenic environment exerts a ponderous impact on the clinical presentation and the course of diabetes. Obesity is strongly linked to T2DM development, yet, the latest observation has shown that more cases of T1DM are diagnosed in youth who had been obese before the onset of the disease. What is more, the presence of autoimmunity is noticed in patients phenotypically classified as T2DM. The overlap of the clinical phenotypes of diabetes has become a new challenge for physicians who formulate a differential diagnosis. There is a question to consider how such patients should be classified. Not to discount the importance of identifying diabetes in an obese child, it is the therapeutic approach to such a complex patient that a physician should mainly focus on. Cases presented herein address the role that childhood obesity plays in making a differential diagnosis of diabetes and even more in choosing the adequate therapy.