Do you think people who are thin when they are originally diagnosed with Diabetes have an advantage? A study in the August 8th edition of JAMA says NO! When comparing mortality rates among normal weight and overweight individuals originally diagnosed with Diabetes, they found the mortality rate for the normal weight people (BMI <25) to be almost double that for overweight and obese individuals.
Comment from diabeticsurvivalkit: this study shows if you develop diabetes at appropriate weight you face higher mortality. It does not say that losing weight before or after diagnosis will worsen your mortality rate. For people with type 2 diabetes who are overweight, weight loss has been shown in other studies to be an advantage. I suspect the Diabetes developed in people who are thin is either different or more severe. Some of the cases may even be diabetes type I. Weight loss has been shown to lower the rate of prediabetes becoming frank diabetes by almost 60%. Let us know how you feel about this information!
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It is impossible to apply statistics to one individual. I had observed lean people developing diabetes not doing as well as obese people as did several of my colleagues. I thought the reason for this might be failure to separate out the LADA, which is actually type I diabetes, from the type 2. I had also seen lean individuals who developed high blood sugars after sustaining damage to the pancreas and wondered if they were also lumped into the diabetes type 2 group. People with LADA do poorly is they are not put on insulin. It seems there may be genetic differences between lean people who develop type 2 diabetes and overweight individuals who develop type 2 diabetes. I located a reference which will be described shortly in which a genetic study indicates type 2 Diabetes in lean an obese individuals may actually be two separate diseases requiring different treatment paths.
This is disturbing news for somebody like me. After two of my children were diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, I discovered have pre-diabetes with a BMI of 21.2. My diet up to the point of discovering I have pre-diabetes was pretty poor. I ate lots of fast food when I traveled for work, and my stress level was high. Since then I have radically changed my lifestyle and I feel much better and my blood glucose levels are better. It was the diagnosis of my two boys that really changed my attitudes and actions toward diet and lifestyle. It was fortunate in that it allowed me to catch my disease earlier than I probably would have otherwise.