An obese wife raises men’s risk of diabetes

Scientists call for routine testing for disease in husbands – although effect is not replicated for women

MEN are more likely to develop diabetes if their wife is obese, but women living with overweight men are not at greater risk, research has found.

The first sex-specific study into the area showed husbands with an obese spouse were 21 per cent more likely to become type 2 diabetic, mainly because they shared their wives’ poor nutrition and exercising habits.

However, the scientists behind the study could not explain why the reverse appears not to be true.

They are now calling for men aged 50 and over living with obese women to be screened for the disease, which affects more than 3.4million adults in England.

The research, which was presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes annual meeting, also found evidence that people aged over 55 living with a diabetic partner tended to be more obese than peers without one.

People who are obese or have a family history of type 2 diabetes are already known to have a much higher risk of the disease.

But until now, the sex-specific effect of spousal obesity on the risk of developing diabetes was unclear.

A team from Aarhus University, in Denmark, examined 3,650 men and 3,478 women aged 50 or older from a nationally representative sample. The participants were interviewed every two and a half years between 1998 and 2015.

The new case rate for type 2 diabetes was 12.6 per 1,000 people per year among men but just 8.6 among women.

In a further study, the research team examined whether the development of obesity with age was different for people with and without a spouse with type 2 diabetes in 7,187 men and women.

They found that in people aged over 55, individuals living with a spouse with type 2 diabetes had much higher levels of obesity compared with those with no spousal diabetes.

“This is the first study investigating the sex-specific effect of spousal obesity on diabetes risk,” said Dr Adam Hulman, who led the research.

“Having an obese wife increases a man’s risk of diabetes over and above the effect of his own obesity level, while among women, having an obese husband gives no additional diabetes risk beyond that of her own obesity level.

He added: “Our results indicate that on finding obesity in a person, screening of their spouse for diabetes may be justified.

“Recognising shared risk between spouses may improve diabetes detection and motivate couples to increase collaborative efforts to eat more healthily and boost their activity levels.

“Obesity or type 2 diabetes in one spouse may serve as a prompt for diabetes screening and regular weight checks in the other.

“In particular, men whose wives are obese may benefit from being followed more closely.”