People with obesity and type 2 diabetes have an increased long-term mortality risk in all weight categories, a new study reveals, and this risk is strongest among those with the highest BMI.
The findings are concerning, but research into healthy eating and getting regular exercise has shown that people can put their type 2 diabetes into remission and reverse obesity, which can greatly improve long-term health.
Researchers from the University of Gothenburg used data from the Swedish National Diabetes Register to look at death rates and obesity figures of people who had been living with type 2 diabetes for less than five years.
The aim of their investigation was to establish whether people’s mortality risk was directly related to their type 2 diabetes or not. Each cohort member was compared to five age and sex-matched control subjects without type 2 diabetes.
Over an average follow-up period of 5.5 years, there were 17,546 deaths among the 149,345 people with type 2 diabetes. Among the 743,907 of those who did not have the condition, there were 68,429 deaths.
The findings indicated that those with type 2 diabetes who had a BMI higher than 40 had an increased risk of death compared to those with a BMI between 25-30.
“Long-term, overweight (BMI 25 to
The findings were published in the Diabetes Care journal.
Editor’s note: Diabetes.co.uk’s Low Carb Program helps people to achieve sustainable weight loss and blood glucose control. So far more than 250,000 people have joined the program and taken advantage of the health benefits which could lead to longer, healthier life.
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