Effect of Excessive Weight Gain With Intensive Therapy of Type 1 Diabetes on Lipid Levels and Blood Pressure

Abstract
PATIENTS WITH type 1 diabetes characteristically gain weight with the institution of insulin therapy but may remain leaner than nondiabetic control subjects.1,2 With intensification of diabetes therapy, continued weight gain correlates inversely with improvement in hemoglobin A1c levels.3,4 After a mean follow-up of 6.5 years in the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT), a study designed to determine the effect of intensive diabetes therapy on the microvascular complications of type 1 diabetes, the prevalence of obesity—which is determined when the body mass index (BMI), which was greater than 27.8 kg/m2for men and greater than 27.3 kg/m2for women—reached 33.1% in the intensively treated subjects compared with 19.1% in the conventionally treated subjects.5