Thinner Isn't Always Better In Diabetes

Skinny doesn’t always mean healthy for people with type 2 diabetes. People who are normal weight when diagnosed with the condition may have a higher risk of death than those who are overweight or obese.

While counterintuitive, the findings may suggest that normal-weight people who have type 2 diabetes are more likely to have other illnesses, frail bones or wasting muscles, researchers report in the Aug. 8 Journal of the American Medical Association.

“This study raises a lot more questions than answers,” says epidemiologist Lynne Wagenknecht of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C. But the authors have done “a really nice job examining every which way, upside down and right side up of what might be going on here,” she says.