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ADA 2022: High BMI as a Teen Increases Risk for Later Type 1 Diabetes
Risk increases with higher body mass index, with a mean age at diagnosis of 25 years
TUESDAY, June 14, 2022 (HealthDay News) – High body mass index (BMI) in otherwise healthy adolescents is associated with an increased risk for incident type 1 diabetes in early adulthood, according to a study published online June 5 in Diabetologia to coincide with the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association, held June 3 to 7 in New Orleans.
"This emphasizes the importance of normal BMI at adolescence and the hazards of overweight and obesity," Gilad Twig, M.D., Ph.D., of Tel Aviv University in Israel, told PracticeUpdate.
Twig and colleagues studied the association between BMI in late adolescence and incident type 1 diabetes in young adulthood. The analysis included data from 1.46 million Israeli adolescents aged 16 to 19 years undergoing medical evaluation for mandatory military conscription from 1996 through 2016. Data were linked to a national diabetes registry.
Overall, there were 777 incident cases of type 1 diabetes (mean age at diagnosis, 25.2 years). BMI was associated with incident type 1 diabetes. When adjusting for age, sex, and sociodemographic variables, BMI was associated with higher type 1 diabetes risk (50th to 74th BMI percentile: hazard ratio [HR] for type 1 diabetes, 1.05; 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.87 to 1.27; 75th to 84th BMI percentile: HR, 1.41; 95 percent CI, 1.11 to 1.78); 85th to 94th percentile: HR, 1.54; 95 percent CI, 1.23 to 1.94; ≥95th percentile: HR, 2.05; 95 percent CI, 1.58 to 2.66). Each standard deviation increment in BMI was associated with a greater risk for the incidence of type 1 diabetes (HR, 1.25).
The authors estimate that 12.8 percent of the newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes cases in the study were attributable to excessive weight in adolescence.
"We were somewhat surprised to see that the association persisted in adolescents who were perfectly healthy apart from having abnormal weight without apparent risk factors for type 1 diabetes," Twig told PracticeUpdate. "These results may help clinicians to emphasize the importance of normal weight for adolescents with increased risk for type 1 diabetes. This is especially emphasized given that abnormal weight at adolescence is currently not perceived by most clinicians as a risk factor for type 1 diabetes."
