Researchers writing in the British medical journal, the Lancet, say the number of children under five in the European Union who suffer from youth diabetes will have doubled to 160,000 by 2020.

In youngsters under 15 and resident in the EU, there will be 70 percent more sufferers of the disease. The increase in cases of youth diabetes will be especially steep in Eastern Europe.

In this kind of diabetes, usually seen in people under 30, the body is able to produce no insulin for itself. The reason why the sickness is becoming so widespread is not clear, but the researchers suspect bad diet and environmental factors are playing a role.