OBESITY alone does not lead to early death or critical illnesses but the risk trebles if a patient has diabetes, experts say.
The link between obesity and type 2 diabetes is well established but now researchers insist that obesity alone is not a predictor of life-threatening illness or early death.
A study published today in the journal Critical Care said that people suffering diabetes are three times more likely to develop critical illness and die young than those who do not have diabetes.
But obese people who do not have diabetes have the same risk of dying or of falling critically ill as non-obese patients who do not have the condition, they said.
The authors said the relationship between obesity, diabetes and critical illness is complex, but insisted that obesity on its own does not lead to very poor health.
The experts were Katarina Slynkova and colleagues from the University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital and researchers from Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, in the US.
They analysed statistics from 15,408 people aged 44 to 66, from across four different US communities, who were originally studied between 1986 and 1989. They looked at body mass index (BMI), presence of type 1 or 2 diabetes and the subjects' history of critical illness, including acute organ failure, and death rates.
They found obese patients had no increased risk of suffering or dying from acute organ failure than those of normal weight. But those with diabetes were three times more likely to become critically ill or die from acute organ failure, or indeed from any cause, than those without the condition.
Zoe Harrison, care adviser at the charity Diabetes UK, said most people with type 2 diabetes were overweight.
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