Obesity and Body Fat Distribution in Relation to the Incidence of Non-lnsulin-dependent Diabetes Mellitus
- 15 December 1992
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in American Journal of Epidemiology
- Vol. 136 (12) , 1474-1486
- https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a116468
Abstract
The relation between the abdominal accumulation of body fat, total-body adiposity, and blood glucose level and the risk of non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus was evaluated prospectively among 1,972 male participants in the Department of Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study cohort. The risk of non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus was assessed by means of the proportional hazards model; 226 cases of diabetes occurred among the 1,972 men (mean age at entry, 41.9 years; range, 22—80 years) over 35,496 person-years of observation. The relation of body mass index to diabetes risk was partly explained by body fat distribution; after adjusting for age, the ratio of abdominal circumference to hip breadth, and cigarette smoking, men in the top tertile for body mass index had a 1.3-fold greater risk of diabetes than did men in the lowest tertile (95% confidence interval 0.9–1.8). Moreover, after adjusting for age, body mass index, and cigarette smoking, men in the top tertile for the ratio of abdominal circumference to hip breadth had a 2.4-foW greater risk of diabetes than did men in the lowest tertile (95% confidence interval 1.7–3.7). When blood glucose was analyzed as a continuous outcome variable, the findings were consistent, i.e., a positive association with abdominal fat independent of total-body adiposity. These results confirm previous reports of a prospective relation between abdominal adiposity and the risk of diabetes and provide prospective evidence of a relation between Wood glucose levels and both body fat distribution and obesity. Am J Epidemiol 1992;136:1474–86.Keywords
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