Type 2 diabetes is one of the fastest-growing health problems in the world. It develops when the body becomes resistant to insulin or cannot produce enough insulin to keep blood sugar under control.
Over time, high blood sugar can damage the heart, kidneys, eyes, nerves, and blood vessels.
Because the condition often develops slowly, many people do not realize they have it until complications appear. For many years, excess body weight has been considered one of the biggest risk factors, but scientists are discovering that body weight is only part of the story.
A major international study led by Curtin University suggests that muscle health is another important factor in determining who develops type 2 diabetes.
The findings were published in the journal Diabetes Care after researchers followed almost 480,000 adults for 14 years. None of the participants had diabetes when the study began, allowing researchers to examine which factors predicted future disease.
The research focused on a condition called sarcopenic obesity. This describes people who have both excess body fat and poor muscle health, including low muscle mass and reduced muscle strength. While obesity and muscle loss have each been linked to health problems before, the researchers wanted to know what happens when both occur together.
The results were striking. People with sarcopenic obesity were more than three-and-a-half times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than people with healthy body composition. They were also 19 percent more likely to develop diabetes than people who had obesity alone and 91 percent more likely than people who had low muscle mass without obesity.
Within ten years, nearly 15 percent of people with sarcopenic obesity developed type 2 diabetes. By comparison, about 11 percent of those with obesity alone developed the disease, while only around 3 percent of people without obesity or muscle loss did.
Researchers also noticed that the association was even stronger in women and adults younger than 60 years. These findings suggest that maintaining healthy muscles throughout adulthood may provide important protection against diabetes.
Muscles play a major role in controlling blood sugar because they use glucose as fuel during movement. When muscles are active, they remove glucose from the bloodstream, helping lower blood sugar naturally. Regular exercise also improves the body’s response to insulin, making it easier for glucose to move from the blood into cells. Losing muscle mass reduces this ability, which may partly explain why diabetes risk increases.
The researchers believe healthcare professionals should not rely only on body weight or body mass index when assessing diabetes risk. Measuring muscle strength and muscle health may help identify high-risk people much earlier, allowing lifestyle changes before diabetes develops.
Maintaining muscle health does not necessarily require intense exercise. Regular strength training, walking, resistance exercises, eating enough protein, maintaining a healthy weight, and staying physically active throughout life can all help preserve muscle mass as people age.
If you care about diabetes, please read studies about Vitamin D and type 2 diabetes, and to people with diabetes, some fruits are better than others.
For more health information, please see recent studies that low calorie diets may help reverse diabetes, and 5 vitamins that may prevent complication in diabetes.
Source: Curtin University.
