eMedicineLive

A new study carried out by the University of Michigan involving about 8000 adolescents and young adults has come to a result that it is not just obesity but the degree and duration of obesity that is associated with an increased risk of development of type II diabetes. The study, which appears in the September issue of the journal “Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine”, has found that the amount of excess weight and the duration for which it has been present affects your chances of developing diabetes.

 

According to the lead author of the study, author Joyce Lee, M.D., M.P.H., a pediatric endocrinologist at U-M's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, that the relationship between weight and type II diabetes is similar to the relationship between smoking and the risk of lung cancer. He feels that in view of the study’s results and the increase in the number of overweight adolescents and young adults, the rate of diabetes which is already high in the U.S., will further increase. 

 

The study, which was a longitudinal study, covered adolescents and young adults aged 14 to 21 years in 1979 and analyzed their height, weight , and diabetes status (type unspecified) from 1981 through 2006. Excess BMI years were calculated by subtracting the actual BMI from the reference BMI (25.0 for adults or 85th percentile for adolescents) for each study year. The researchers found that a higher level of excess BMI-years was associated with an increased risk of diabetes. For a given level of excess BMI-years, the researchers noticed that people from black and Hispanic origin are more prone to develop type II diabetes. Hispanics had double the risk while blacks had one and a half times the risk of developing type II diabetes as compared to whites. Similarly, if you are young and have a high BMI, you are more prone to develop the disease. The researchers have suggested that in view of these findings, more focus should be laid on obesity prevention and treatment in adolescents and young adults, especially those belonging to ethnic minorities. 

 

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