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Monday, December 31
A Swedish study suggests that weight gain in boys at puberty may increase the risk of developing diabetes decades later.
The researchers studied measurements of body mass index in 36,176 men aged 8 years to 20 years. They then tracked the medical records of these men from the age of 30 for nearly three decades. During this period, 1,777 men were diagnosed with diabetes.
Overweight men in their childhood and not in adulthood were no more likely to develop diabetes when they were older than their peers who had a healthy weight during their childhood.
However, men who gained weight in adulthood were four times more likely to develop diabetes before the age of 55 and twice as likely to develop the disease after that age than men with a healthy weight.
According to the World Health Organization, one in five children and one in five teenagers suffer from obesity or overweight.
Children and adolescents are obese when BMI, the weight / height ratio, is greater than 95% of other young people of the same age and sex. They are considered overweight when the BMI ranges from 85 to 95%.
In the present study, researchers focused on the risk of type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, which is related to obesity and aging and which occurs when the body can not use or excrete enough insulin to convert blood sugar into energy. This type of disease can lead to complications such as blindness, kidney failure, nerve damage and amputation.
According to the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, a specialist in endocrine and metabolic diseases, 6.2% of participants were overweight at the age of 8 and 7.4% at the age of 20.
The study found that about 58% of people who had gained weight during their childhood had a normal weight in adulthood.
At the same time, about 64% of overweight men at puberty had a normal weight at eight years.
The study was not designed to establish whether BMI during childhood or adolescence directly affects diabetes in adults.
"We do not know what mechanisms are hiding behind this association," said Dr. Jenny Kinblebel of the University of Gothenburg, who led the research team.
An earlier study suggests that an increase in BMI during puberty may be associated with the development of visceral adipose tissue or excess fat at the waist, which is associated with an increased risk of diabetes.
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