A group of specialists from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health disproved the low prevalence of obesity among type 1 diabetics. It turned out that in people with diabetes of this type, the frequency of obesity is the same as in healthy people. The findings of the study are published in the Annals of Internal Medicine (AIM).

Type 2 diabetes is common in older people and people who are overweight or obese. At the same time, type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that develops in childhood, but can also occur in adults. Type 1 diabetes occurs when a person's immune system is activated to attack and destroy the pancreas' own cells that produce insulin. As you know, it is the hormone insulin that helps cells absorb glucose from the blood. As a result, patients with type 1 diabetes cannot produce sufficient levels of insulin on their own, so they are forced to regularly inject it from outside.

The new work examined data from 128,000 people from 2016 to 2021. A follow-up analysis showed that 34 percent of adults with type 1 diabetes were overweight and 28 percent were obese. In turn, almost the same proportions were in participants without diabetes: 36 and 28 percent, respectively. In patients with type 2 diabetes, this figure is 86 percent in total (overweight or obese).

Related materials:Nothing to breathe. How oxygen affects the aggressiveness of cancerous tumors

In addition, half of type 1 diabetics who were overweight or obese received lifestyle advice from doctors. The authors believe this may be because the insulin needed to treat type 1 diabetes carries the risk of dangerously low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) when combined with intense exercise or a drastically reduced calorie intake.

In contrast, large clinical trials have been conducted in patients with type 2 diabetes to develop recommendations for weight loss based on diet and exercise, so it is now necessary to do similar work for people with type 1 diabetes, experts say.