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Diabetics with a healthy weight are twice as likely to die
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Scientists from Northwestern University in Chicago came to a paradoxical conclusion. They found that people with normal weight who have type 2 diabetes are more likely to die prematurely than those who are overweight.
The presence of extra pounds seems to have never been considered an advantage for health. It is they who most often lead a person to develop type 2 diabetes. But if the disease has entered its rights, the extra pounds, it turns out, can be useful. American researchers have found that diabetics with a healthy weight are more than twice as likely to die from heart disease and other causes than their peers with fewer kilograms.
Diabetes type 2 can develop in people with normal weight - that's what they are in a group of special risk. The researchers observed a group of diabetics, one in eight of whom never faced the problem of extra pounds. It turned out that in their bodies, diabetes develops more aggressively.
"We were surprised to learn that people with type 2 diabetes and normal weight die much more often than other diabetics," said the author of the study, Dr. Mercedes Carneton, "Excess weight and obesity provide diabetics with some protection in the final stage of kidney and heart disease, the so-called paradox obesity. "
However, Dr. Carneton hurried to add that the minuses of excess weight and obesity are many times greater than the above pluses. Extra pounds are associated with the development of many diseases - from heart attacks and strokes to cancer. And one of the most effective ways of treating type 2 diabetes for people with obesity is still weight loss.