MONDAY, Feb. 1 (HealthDay News) -- A medication used to treat type 2 diabetes appears to help overweight teenagers lose weight when combined with a program designed to help them change their lifestyle habits, researchers report.

The obese kids who took the drug, metformin XR, lost a small but statistically significant amount of weight, says a study in the February issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

According to the study, almost a third of American children are overweight or obese, conditions that put them at high risk for type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.

While some doctors use metformin to treat non-diabetic fat teens, it hasn't been clear if it actually works.

Researchers enrolled 77 fat adolescents, aged 13 to 18, in a program designed to boost their physical activity and help them control their diet. Some received a placebo, while others got a daily dose of 2,000 milligrams of metformin XR.

Over a year, the average body-mass index -- a measurement of weight in relation to height -- fell by 0.9 in the metformin group but grew by 0.2 in those who took a placebo.

"Metformin was safe and tolerated in this population. These results indicate that metformin may have an important role in the treatment of adolescent obesity," the authors concluded. "Longer-term studies will be needed to define the effects of metformin treatment on obesity-related disease risk in this population."

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more on metformin.

TUESDAY, Jan. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Victoza (liraglutide) has been approved to treat type 2 diabetes in some adults, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in a news release.

But the agency warned that the once-daily injection shouldn't be used as an initial (first-line) treatment until additional studies are completed, since the drug may cause thyroid tumors or a rare disease called medullary thyroid cancer. People at risk for this type of cancer shouldn't use the drug, the FDA stressed.

Victoza, among a class of medicines called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists, is meant to be used along with diet and exercise to control blood sugar by helping the pancreas make more insulin after a person eats.

In clinical studies involving more than 3,900 patients, people who took Victoza had more cases of pancreatic inflammation (pancreatitis) than people who took other diabetes drugs, the FDA said. The drug should be stopped if severe abdominal pain develops or tests confirm pancreatitis, the agency said.

Victoza is produced by Denmark-based Novo Nordisk.

More information

To learn more about this approval, visit the FDA.

MONDAY, Jan. 4 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests that body measurements and laboratory tests may predict the likelihood that a child will develop type 2 diabetes later in life.

Researchers analyzed long-term studies of 1,067 black and white girls followed for nine years after the age of 9 or 10, and of 822 black and white children followed for 22 to 30 years beginning in the mid-1970s.

The findings appear in the January issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

The authors found that participants in the second study were more likely to have diabetes at the age of 39 if they had high childhood levels of blood pressure, body-mass index, glucose and triglycerides. Low levels of "good" cholesterol also spelled trouble.

"When body-mass index, systolic blood pressure and diastolic [bottom number] blood pressure were all lower than the 75th percentile and there was no parental diabetes mellitus, the likelihood of children developing type 2 diabetes mellitus 22 to 30 years later was only 1 percent," the authors wrote.

Those in the first study had a higher risk of diabetes at age 19 if they had parents with diabetes and higher levels of systolic blood pressure and insulin concentration.

The findings could help encourage prevention efforts in children who appear likely to develop diabetes, the researchers suggested.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on diabetes.