Male obesity at puberty is linked to diabetes

A Swedish study suggests that gaining weight for boys at puberty may increase the risk of developing diabetes decades later.

Researchers studied body mass index measurements for 36,176 men at the age of eight and when they were 20, and then followed the health records of these men from the age of 30 for almost three decades. During this period, 1,777 men were diagnosed with diabetes.

Men who were overweight in childhood and not in adulthood were not more likely to develop diabetes when they were older than their peers who had a healthy weight during childhood.

But men who had gained weight in adulthood were four times more likely to develop diabetes before the age of 55 and twice as likely to develop the disease after that age than men who had a healthy weight as children.

Globally, one in five children and adolescents suffer from obesity or overweight according to the World Health Organization.

Children and adolescents are obese when BMI (which equals weight in kilograms divided by square meters) is higher than 95% of other young people of the same age and gender. They are considered overweight when BMI ranges from 85 to 95 percent.

Diabetes
In the current study, researchers focused on the risk of type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, which is linked to obesity and aging and occurs when the body can not use or excrete enough insulin to convert blood sugar to energy. This type of disease can lead to complications such as blindness, kidney failure, nerve damage and amputation.

According to the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, a specialist in endocrine and metabolic diseases, 6.2% of participants were overweight at age 8 and 7.4% were at age 20.

The study found that about 58% of those who suffered from weight gain during childhood enjoyed normal weight at the age of majority.

At the same time, about 64 percent of men who were overweight at puberty had normal weight at the age of eight.

The study was not designed to establish whether BMI during childhood or adolescence directly affects diabetes in adults.

"We do not know what the mechanism behind this association is," said Dr. Jenny Kinblebel of the University of Gothenburg, who led the research team.

A previous study suggests that increased BMI during puberty may be associated with the development of so-called visceral adipose tissue or excess fat at the waist, which in turn is associated with an increased risk of diabetes.