Diabetes, Not Obesity, Increases Risk Of Developing Critical Illness and Early Death

A study by the University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital and Emory University School of Medicine has concluded that obese individuals, who do not have the disease diabetes, are equally as likely to die or develop a critical illness as those people who are not obese. It has always been thought that because there is such a link between obesity and diabetes that this would not be the case. However, it was found that diabetes is the ultimate factor in the death or critical illness of a patient not his or her body mass index. The study was conducted over a period of three years and included the analysis of 15,408 subjects from ages 44 to 66. The analysis was of the subject's body mass index, presence of either type 1 or type 2 diabetes, and the hisoty of acute organ failure. After the analysis was complete, the researcher's found that the obese subjects who did not have diabetes had similar results to those who were not obese and also did not have diabetes. Subjects who did have diabetes were found to be 3 times as likely to suffer from acute organ failure.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060925054536.htm