Diabetes Risk Factors Include Obesity

We've known for a long time that being obese is one of the diabetes risk factors, now a new bit of research finds that the volume of extra weight, and the length of time it's carried, can raise that risk even more. That's of special concern to medical professionals given the growing numbers of obese kids and teens in America. These kids are packing on the pounds earlier and will therefore spend more years carrying more weight than is good for them than any other generation.

Evidence from research and personal experience will tell you that your weight creeps up as you get older. If you're already starting out heavy, that isn't a good sign - obese kids are far more likely to become obese adults.

Beyond diabetes, being obese is a well-recognized contributor to heart disease, disability and early death.

According to researchers the relationship between what you weigh and diabetes risk is the same as that between smoking and lung cancer risk. In fact, BMI is a better predictor of diabetes risk than using body weight on its own.

The finding suggests an increase in the number of diabetes diagnoses in the U.S.

The team looked at data on almost 8,000 teens, calculating how much over a healthy body mass index, BMI they were, and the length of time they were overweight or obese. Those who had a BMI of over 25.0 for a significant period had an increased risk of diabetes.

So for example, if you had a BMI of over 35 for a decade, you were thought to have the equal of a century of excess BMI. That's a pretty big "dose" of extra weight.

Black and Hispanic subjects had an even greater risk of diabetes than whites that were carrying the same levels of extra weight for the same time. For people with a BMI over 35.0, Hispanics were two times as likely to be diagnosed with diabetes than whites, and blacks had a 1.5 times as likely to get diabetes than whites.

Because children are becoming overweight much earlier and are carrying the weight for much longer over their lifetimes, there is a good chance we'll see diabetes rates on the rise like never before.

The BMI numbers are certainly higher than just 20 years ago - in the 1970s and 1980s, just 5% of children were considered obese - in 2000 over 13% were obese, and 2009 stats have obesity at 18% of the population of children in this country. Obesity prevention programs need to focus efforts on both teens and young people, particularly those in minority groups.

So if you're a parent what can you do?

To lose the extra fat, kids need to eat a healthier diet and get at least 30 minutes a day of rigorous exercise. The secret to weight loss, at any age, is simply taking in fewer calories than you burn off by your daily activities. Going forward, medical professionals will likely start paying attention to not just patients BMI but the length of time (or "dose") spent at that weight when assessing diabetes risk factors.

Type 2 Diabetes - Obesity and Gum Disease!

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Obesity and gum disease are both frequently seen in people with diabetes, and according to researchers at Brigham and the Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, the two are associated, in both diabetics and non-diabetics. Their study was published in the journal Obesity in October 2011.

Study 1: Included in the study were 36,910 volunteers who had no gum disease at the start of the study. After 20 years it was found people with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 kg/square meter, considered obese, had a thirty percent higher risk of disease of the gums, than those with a normal BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 kg/square meter. The volunteers who:

had a large waist measurement were 27 percent more likely to have gum disease than those who had a normal waist size, andthose with a high weight to height ratio were 34 percent more likely to suffer diseased gums than patients with a normal ratio.

According to the study, inflammation brought on by obesity can cause gum disease.

Study 2: In 2007 investigators at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, USA, looked at inflammatory molecules in the portal vein, a vein that carries blood from abdominal fat. In their article, published in the journal Diabetes, they described finding the inflammatory molecules in 25 extremely obese volunteers. The amount of interleukin-6, associated with inflammation, was found to be higher in blood taken from the portal vein, which carries blood from the abdominal fat, than in blood taken from an artery in the arm.

Study 3: In September, 2011 the Iranian Journal of Immunology reported upon a study completed on the subject of inflammatory molecules and gum disease. Researchers at the University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran, looked at inflammatory molecules in the blood of people with severe gum disease. Twenty-five volunteers with severe gum disease were found to have higher levels of IL-6 in their blood than 25 study participants without gum disease.

According to the American Diabetes Association, gum disease can cause diabetes to go out of control. According to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, USA, about 34 percent of American adults suffer gum disease, and the condition can result in tooth loss, as well as being associated with generally poor health, heart and blood vessel disease, and complications of pregnancy.

From the above it is apparent that losing belly fat could help to prevent diseased gums, an important cause of tooth loss. Losing weight is already known to be helpful in:

controlling Type 2 diabetes, andpreventing high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes.

If your waist-to-hip ratio is greater than 0.7 for women or 0.9 for men, why not start a campaign today to bring your belly fat down to a normal healthy level?

To discover answers to questions you may be asking yourself about Type 2 Diabetes, click on this link... Natural Diabetes Treatments

Clicking on this link will help you to see how to Beat The Belly Fat Blues Beverleigh Piepers RN... the Diabetes Detective.

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