Obesity Raises Risk for Diabetes in Older People

Obesity and excess body fat are risk factors for developing diabetes, but in mid- and late-life the association of various measures of adiposity with diabetes is less clear. A population-based prospective cohort study was used to follow about 4000 older people (age, ≥65 at enrollment) for a median of 12 years; 339 incident cases of diabetes were identified.

Risk for developing diabetes was roughly three- to fourfold higher for people in the highest quintile of adiposity than for those in the lowest. Risk associated with measures of body composition included body-mass index (BMI) at baseline (hazard ratio, 4.3 for the highest quintile), waist circumference (HR, 4.2), fat mass (HR, 4.0), waist-height ratio (HR, 3.8), BMI at age 50 (by self-rec…