medwireNews: A study of Danish men suggests that the increased risk for diabetes associated with being overweight in childhood may be reversed if people lose their excess weight by young adulthood.
For men who did so, the risk for developing type 2 diabetes beyond the age of 29 years was no higher than that of men who were a healthy weight throughout childhood. But men who were overweight as children (aged 7 years) and remained so, and those who became overweight as young adults (age 17–26 years), were threefold more likely to develop diabetes than those who lost their childhood excess weight.
The research involved more than 60,000 Danish males, of whom 5.4% were overweight when weighed at school, and 8.2% were overweight when assessed in young adulthood, at the time of national conscription. In all, 40% of overweight boys were still overweight as young adults.
Lise Bjerregaard (Frederiksberg Hospital, Copenhagen), who presented the findings this week at the American Diabetes Association scientific sessions, said the research team was “excited” to find that achieving a healthy weight by young adulthood completely reversed the formerly overweight men’s diabetes risk.
She said: “Our results highlight the need for normalizing weight among overweight children before they reach adulthood.”
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