Childhood obesity quadruples risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes

According to a large-scale study published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society a child with obesity faces a four-fold increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes by the time they are 25 than their normal weight counterparts. The study examined data from 375 GP practices around the UK, using the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink. In total this amounted to 369,362 children between the ages of 2 and 15. Children and adolescents with obesity constituted nearly half of all diagnoses of Type 2 Diabetes between 1994 and 2013. As expected, there was no relationship between obesity and Type 1 diabetes, which is caused by an underlying autoimmune disorder.

Dr Ali Abbasi, lead author from King’s College London said, “given that diabetes and obesity are preventable from early life, our findings and other research will hopefully motivate the public and policymakers to invest and engage in diabetes prevention efforts.” Both obesity and type 2 diabetes are large scale health problems that often present together, hopefully this research will be taken into account by experts and policy makers in the future.