Diabetes Mortality in Midlife Predicted by Adolescent BMI

HealthDay News – Adolescent body mass index (BMI) predicts diabetes mortality in midlife, according to a study published online in Diabetes Care.

Gilad Twig, MD, PhD, from the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, Israel, and colleagues examined the correlation for BMI in late adolescence with diabetes mortality in midlife. BMI values were measured for 2,294,139 Israeli adolescents between 1967 and 2010. The outcome of death attributed to diabetes as the underlying cause was obtained by linkage with official national records.

The researchers identified 481 deaths from diabetes (mean age at death: 50.6 ± 6.6 years) during 42,297,007 person-years of follow-up (median: 18.4 years). From the 25th to the 49th BMI percentile group onward and from a BMI of 20.0 to 22.4 kg/m² onward there was a graded increase in diabetes mortality. Compared with the 5th to 24th percentiles, overweight (85th to 94th percentiles) and obesity (95th percentile or higher) correlated with hazard ratios of 8.0 and 17.2, respectively, for diabetes mortality, after adjustment for multiple confounding variables. 

For the 50th through the 74th percentiles, the hazard ratio was 1.6. The estimated population-attributable fraction for diabetes mortality was 31.2% for the 1967 to 1977 prevalence of overweight and obesity at age 17, and increased to 52.1% for the 2012 to 2014 prevalence.

“The increasing prevalence of childhood and adolescent overweight and obesity points to a substantially increased future adult diabetes burden,” the authors wrote.

Reference

Twig G, Tirosh A, Leiba A, et al. Body mass index at age 17 and diabetes mortality in midlife: a nationwide cohort of 2.3 million adolescents. Diabetes Care. 2016 Sep;dc161203. doi:10.2337/dc16-1203.