
Type 1 diabetes has long been considered a thin person’s disease, but a new study challenges that notion. About 62% of adults with type 1 diabetes were overweight or obese, the researchers found. That compared to 64% of those without diabetes and 86% of those with type 2 diabetes. For the study, the researchers used data on more than 128,000 people from the U.S. National Health Interview Survey. The investigators found that 34% of adults with type 1 diabetes were overweight. About 28% had obesity. Despite these high numbers, only slightly more than half of adults with type 1 diabetes who were overweight or had obesity received lifestyle recommendations from health care providers, such as to increase physical activity or cut calories, the findings showed. The study authors said this is likely because the insulin required to treat type 1 diabetes carries the risk of dangerously low blood sugar levels (hypoglycemia) if combined with intense exercise or severely reduced calorie intake. “The lack of evidence for safe, effective methods of diet- and exercise-based weight control in people with type 1 diabetes may be keeping doctors from recommending such methods,” said study first author Michael Fang, an assistant professor in Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore. “Large clinical trials have been done in type 2 diabetes patients to establish guidelines for diet- and… read on > read on >