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Incident diabetes risk tied to weight gain in adulthood
Weight gain in adulthood is associated with the risk for incident diabetes, whereas weight maintenance may decrease that risk, study data show.
“Compared to how many cases of type 2 diabetes are prevented by targeting individuals at high risk for the disease due to obesity, we could potentially prevent more cases with public health strategies which promote weight maintenance in all adults,” Adina L. Feldman, PhD, MSc, of the MRC Epidemiology Unit, Institute of Metabolic Science, University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, told Endocrine Today.
Feldman and colleagues evaluated data from a population-based cohort from Västerbotton County in Sweden on 33,184 adults aged 30 to 60 years between 1990 and 2013. At baseline and 10-year follow-up, height, weight and diabetes status were measured in all participants.
Mean BMI was 25 kg/m2 at baseline and increased to 26.3 kg/m2 at the 10-year follow-up. More than half of participants (55.2%) had normal BMI at baseline; that group decreased to 41.2% at follow-up. During follow-up, 29.1% of participants maintained their weight, 56.6% gained weight and 14.2% lost weight.
Overall, 3.3% of participants developed incident diabetes, and among those, 33.4% had impaired glucose tolerance or impaired fasting glucose at baseline. The absolute risk for diabetes was higher among participants with higher BMI at baseline. No association was found between BMI change and the risk for diabetes in participants who were aged 30 years at baseline, with the exception of the highest BMI category. The risk for diabetes was significantly increased for participants with a more than 7% weight change (OR = 2.18; 95% CI, 1.63-2.93).
Weight gain of 1 kg/m2 or more was associated with an increased risk for incident diabetes compared with weight maintenance (OR = 1.52; 95% CI, 1.32-1.74).
“For clinicians it is as important to promote maintenance of healthy lifestyle behavior and weight among other patients as it is to treat those at high risk for type 2 diabetes,” Feldman told Endocrine Today. “This message is also important for society, that a reduction in new cases of type 2 diabetes could be possible through population-based strategies that support people in maintaining healthy lifestyle behavior and preventing weight gain. Research is needed to develop and evaluate population-based public health strategies that promote weight maintenance, which may also have other health benefits beyond reducing diabetes recurrence.” – by Amber Cox
For more information:
Adina L. Feldman, PhD, MSc, can be reached at adina.feldman@mrc-epid.cam.ac.uk.
Disclosure: Feldman reports no relevant financial disclosures. Please see the full study for a list of all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.