Gaining weight as a teenager ‘increases the risk of diabetes’
PUTTING on weight as a teenager significantly increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to research.
Children who are of a healthy weight at the age of ten but overweight or obese by adulthood are at a 53% increased risk of diabetes.
Researchers from Exeter University in England found those who put on lots of weight were at an even greater risk than those who were overweight to begin with.
The findings, presented at a conference for the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Berlin, suggest those who are too fat from early childhood adapt to the weight.
However, those who start off thin and then gain weight in their teenage years may put a major strain on their metabolism. The findings are particularly concerning in light of Ireland’s spiralling obesity crisis.
Earlier this year, findings from the World Health Organisation revealed Ireland has one of the highest obesity rates in Europe, with one in four adults classed as obese and one in four children overweight.
Dr Jessica Tyrrell, who led the Exeter University research, said: ‘These findings suggest that individuals who remain in the higher BMI (body mass index) range throughout life may adapt to excess weight in ways that lower the risk of type 2 diabetes in comparison to individuals of similar adult BMI that have increased lower to higher BMI since childhood.’
Dr Tyrrell’s team looked at health data from 372,000 people in Britain. They analysed particiIreland pants’ BMI as adults and compared it with their selfreported body size at age ten.
They found that those who had been thin in childhood but overfrom weight in adulthood were 53% more likely to have diabetes than those whose BMI had not significantly increased.
The total number of people in living with diabetes – a major cause of heart attacks and strokes – is estimated to be around 225,00.
Type 2 diabetes usually occurs when fat content in the body becomes so high that it stops insulin maintaining a normal
Diabetes rates have soared
blood glucose level. A Healthy Ireland survey previously found that around 854,000 adults over the age of 40 in the country either have, or are at increased risk of developing, Type 2 diabetes.