Researchers in Oxford analysed all NHS hospital admissions from 1968 to 1996 for diabetes in people aged under 30 years. Deaths were monitored for three years to 1999.
There were 4,992 admissions for diabetes among people aged under 30 years and there were 58 deaths during the three year follow up period (29 from diabetes, 14 from other diseases, 9 from suicide, and 6 from accidents).
Although, in absolute terms, death in young people with diabetes in uncommon, this study showed that death within three years of hospital admission was nine times more common than in the general population, say the authors.
Their findings also suggest that that survival of young people with diabetes, whose disease was serious enough to warrant admission, is unlikely to have improved much in the past 30 years.