http://www.wa****ngtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/12/AR200808120
0962.html
Weight Loss After Diabetes Diagnosis Offers Big Benefits: Study
By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Re****ter
Tuesday, August 12, 2008; 12:00 AM
TUESDAY, Aug. 12 (HealthDay News) -- Newly diagnosed type 2 diabetics who
lose weight soon after their diagnosis gain better control of their blood
pressure and blood sugar, a benefit that lasts even if they regain that
weight.
"If you lose weight after diagnosis, you can achieve some long-term
benefits in terms of blood pressure and glycemic control that extend even
beyond the point at which you regain weight," said Gregory A. Nichols,
co-author of new research published online Aug. 12 in the journalDiabetes
Care.
Added Dr. Spyros Mezitis, an endocrinologist with Lenox Hill Hospital in
New York City: "We haven't had results like this before. This is telling
us
that with a significant mean weight loss of 10.7 kilograms [23.5 pounds]
in
18 months, there's an improvement despite weight regain after 36 months."
More than 20 million Americans now have type 2 diabetes, and the majority
are either overweight or obese.
Studies have shown that weight loss is im****tant to maintain blood-sugar
and blood-pressure control, as well as to keep cholesterol levels in
check.
These parameters, in turn, are critical for avoiding the long-term
complications of diabetes, such as heart disease, blindness, kidney
damage,
amputations and even death.
Nichols, an investigator with the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health
Research in ****tland, Ore., and his team looked at electronic medical
records, spanning 1997 to 2002, for 2,574 patients aged 21 through 75 who
had been recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. The participants were
grouped into weight loss categories and followed for four years.
Just over 12 percent of the participants were in the "weight loss" group,
with a mean weight loss of more than 25 pounds. Almost all of those pounds
were regained by 36 months. The other groups were labeled as "higher
stable
weight," "lower stable weight" or "weight gain."
Patients who lost weight were more likely to reach blood pressure and
blood
sugar targets during the fourth year, although, by then, they had regained
the weight.
The researchers acknowledged, however, that they don't know what happens
after the four-year mark, and they don't know why the benefit was
sustained. "It's entirely possible that one of the explanations here is
that if we looked at 15 years, we wouldn't find that benefit continuing,"
Nichols said.
Nichols and his colleagues hope to explore a number of other questions,
including whether there was a difference in benefit between people who
regained weight and those who kept it off.
Whatever the final answers, "losing weight is a good idea, even if you
regain it," Nichols said.
Said Mezitis: "We do ask that those diabetics who are overweight lose
weight, and that, in general, improves all the factors that affect
vascular
disease, and that's blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol."
|
