2023-06-19 13:43:43
He is surprised that he has so clearly identified a new risk marker.
‘I am amazed by the results, which are absolutely unequivocal and clear: The lower the birth weight, the higher the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. We see a completely linear curve. Birth weight appears to be an independent risk factor in line with your genetics and family history, which is completely new and groundbreaking knowledge,” he said in a press release.
Nearly 300,000 Danes have type 2 diabetes.
It’s a chronic disease in which your blood sugar is elevated because your body can’t use insulin or doesn’t make enough insulin.
Insulin helps the cells absorb the sugars from the food we eat, so when the sugars can’t get into the cells, blood sugar levels rise.
The disease is most common in adults, but more and more younger people are being diagnosed as well.
New criteria for screening
Until now, heredity, lifestyle and obesity were the three risk factors that researchers and doctors took into account when advising and treating people with type 2 diabetes.
Allan Vaag hopes that the World Health Organization (WHO) will also include birth weight as a screening criterion for type 2 diabetes in the future.
“We can no longer ignore the fetal component, as these two studies clearly show. At the same time, we still need to explore how we can prevent babies from being born with a low birth weight in the first place. However, we already know that smoking, stress and eating disorders can cause very low birth weight,” he says.
Premature birth or conditions in the mother can also cause low birth weight.
If you had a low birth weight and remained slim as an adult, your chances of developing type 2 diabetes are nearly the same as anyone else’s, the study said.
#birth #weight #increases #risk #diabetes