The Deadly Twosome: Diabetes and Obesity
People are at greater risk from diabetes than obesity, findings of a new study reveals. According to the study, it is diabetes and not obesity that puts people at higher risk of developing acute organ failure or death.
The study analyzed the correlation between the body mass index (BMI) and both the development of critical illness and adverse outcomes in critically ill patients with prime focus on the influence of concomitant diabetes mellitus (DM) on this correlation.
In a study conducted at the University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital in Lexington and Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, the researchers examined the medical records of 15,408 people aged between 44 and 66 years. Details regarding the BMI and whether or not they were suffering from diabetes were taken into account.
Body mass index (BMI) is a measure of body fat based on height and weight that applies to both adult men and women. People with BMI of more than 30 are classified as obese.
The results of the study highlighted that the obese people ran 22 % more chances to be diabetic, i.e. 8% more than the rate seen among subjects with a lower BMI.
However, people who had diabetes were three times more likely to either get a critical illness or die early. On the other hand, obese individuals without diabetes had the same risk of premature death as normal persons did, reports revealed.
The study claimed that BMI alone cannot be attributed to risk of acute organ failure. People without diabetes showed 0.7% rate of organ failure, as compared to 2.4% failure rate in diabetic patients.
Moreover, diabetes increased the risk of early deaths in diabetic patients in comparison to non diabetic patients. Deaths among patients with organ failure rose to 46% in diabetic patients from a 12% risk rate in non diabetic patients while under hospitalization.
Obesity, diabetes and critical illness share a complex relationship and obesity by itself may not predict poor health outcomes. It is the combination of the three that can prove fatal.
