Study Examines Effects of Weight Gain Prevention on Diabetes Risk
Results of a recent study suggest that public health strategies aiming to prevent adult weight gain in the entire population could potentially prevent twice as many cases of type 2 diabetes as policies that target individuals at high risk for the disease.
While current public health strategies often target individuals at high risk of developing diabetes, less is known about the effects of broader focused programs on these individuals.
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In order to further explore this question, researchers conducted an analysis of data from 33,184 individuals who attended 2 health examinations 10 years apart between 1990 and 2013. With this information, they were able to determine the association between change in body weight between baseline and follow-up and the occurrence of diabetes, as well as the impact of population-level shifts in body weight on rates of diabetes occurrence.
During follow-up, 1087 participants developed diabetes, 17,876 gained more than 1 kg/m2 relative to their starting weight, and 12,020 maintained their weight.
Compared with those who maintained their weight, those who gained weight had a 52% higher risk of diabetes. The researchers estimated that if every participant who had gained weight had maintained their weight instead, as many as 1 in 5 of all type 2 diabetes cases could have been prevented. They also estimated that if every participant with a body mass index over 30 kg/m2 was referred to a commercial weight management program, 1 in 10 cases could have been prevented.
The researchers concluded that a population-based strategy promoting the prevention of weight gain could potentially prevent more than twice the number of cases of diabetes as a strategy only targeting those at high risk for diabetes, but that these estimates should be interpreted with caution, as they represent idealized conditions.
—Michael Potts
Reference:
Feldman AL, Griffin SJ, Ahern AL, et al. Impact of weight maintenance and loss on diabetes risk and burden: A population based study in 33,184 participants [published online February 6, 2017]. BMC Public Health. doi:10.1186/s12889-017-4081-6