In people with diabetes, what really matters is the body fat index, not the body mass index.

In Diabetics, Body Mass Index, Not Body Mass Index (BMI), Is Associated With Higher Risk of Cardiovascular Events, New Study Conducted CMAJ (Journal of the Canadian Medical Association).

Heart disease is a leading cause of death in the world and obesity is a major risk factor. Body mass index, a common measure of obesity, has recently been an imperfect measure, as it does not distinguish between lean muscle mass and body fat. When problems related to obesity are studied, it is extremely important to have appropriate measures accurately describing obesity.

The researchers analyzed data from 10,251 adults in the ACCORD study, a randomized controlled trial conducted in the United States on diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD). The average age was almost 63 years old and 62% of the participants were men. The researchers found that people with type 2 diabetes and high fat mass had an increased risk of major cardiovascular events compared to people with reduced body fat. Unlike previous research, the protective role of lean body mass has not been observed in the population of researchers with type 2 diabetes as a whole.

"We found that the protective effect of lean body mass was observed in participants whose BMI was less than 16.7 kg / m2," writes Dr. Xinqun Hu, Departments of Cardiovascular Medicine and Medicine. emergency, second hospital Xiangya, Changsha, Hunan. , China, with coauthors. "The increased risk of CVD in [type 2 diabetes mellitis] patients with a lower BMI can be attributed to the adverse effects of a lower lean body mass that negates the positive effect of a reduced fat mass. "

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"Association of predictable lean mass and body fat with cardiovascular events in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus" is published on September 23, 2019.