Does obesity lead to diabetes?

The researchers looked at data from five national surveys covering 1976 through 2010 to determine how much of the increase in diabetes over time could be explained by factors such as the changing distribution of race, age and obesity among adults in the United. UU. 
The researchers found that the prevalence of diabetes among men increased from about 5 to over 11 percent. In women, increased from just under 6 to almost 9 percent. When the researchers looked at factors that could contribute to the increasing rates of diabetes, obesity alone was emphasized. While for men, just explained about half of the increase, according to the researchers. 
"Overweight and obesity accounted for most of the increase in the prevalence of diabetes in EE. UU. During this period," said study researcher Andy Menke, an epidemiologist at Social & Scientific Systems, a private research organization. 
The other observed factors (age, race and ethnicity) "it had little influence on changes in the prevalence of diabetes [in the study period]," he said. 
The study appears in the Sept. 2 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine. 
More than 29 million Americans have diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). UU. Type 2 diabetes is by far the most common type of the disease, according to the American Diabetes Association (American Diabetes Association, ADA). 
The known risk factors for type 2 diabetes include being overweight, a sedentary life and age, according to the ADA. The race is also a known risk factor, and blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have higher rates of type 2 diabetes than whites, the ADA scores. 
The new study included information from national health examination surveys and nutrition EE. UU. representing nearly 24,000 men and women aged 20 to 74 years old. 


"Changes over time in the distribution of age, race and ethnicity, and obesity in the population accounted for all the increase in women, but only half of the increase in men," said Menke. 
It can not be explained from this study why diabetes rates are increasing men more than women, or exactly what factors underlie this increase. 
He said it is not known why the weight plays a role in some people from getting diabetes, but not in others. "It is unclear why some people who have maintained a healthy weight all their lives contract type 2 diabetes, while other people who are obese never shrink," he said. 
Menke and other experts believe that genetics may play a stronger role in some people than in others. 
Both genetics and environmental factors promote the risk of diabetes, said Dr. Joel Zonszein, director of the Clinical Diabetes Center at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. "There's been a [continuous] debate on how much is genetic and how much is environmental." 
But it is likely that obesity is the major factor responsible for the increase in type 2 diabetes, scored Zonszein. It is also important because it is a modifiable risk factor, which means it is a risk factor that people can change, according to the study authors. 
Zonszein said the study has at least one limitation: the use of body mass index (BMI) as a measure of obesity. 
The authors also noted that using BMI as a measure of how much fat (also called adiposity) a person is a limitation, and that other measures, such as waist circumference, could be linked more firmly with diabetes. But encuetas used only measured BMI, not the waist circumference. 
According Zonszein to predict diabetes more accurately measure adiposity is better in other ways, including taking into account the fabric of "good fat" or brown fat, which is not believed to increase the risk of diabetes. He said that some women may not have a high BMI but high levels of abdominal fat, a "bad fat" that is known to increase the risk of diabetes. 
Another potential limitation is that the survey data did not allow the researchers to control factors such as physical activity which is known to affect the risk of diabetes, according to the study.