TEMPO.CO, New York - A new study revealed that ethnicity affects people’s risk of having diabetic problems. As reported by Reuters, the study by the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow, UK, shows that black and Asian adults are at risk for developing diabetes at a lower weight than the whites (caucasians).
Based on the findings, researchers suggest the definition of obesity should be different for different populations, in order to trigger diabetes interventions in a timely manner. Naveed Sattar, one of the researchers who work on the study, explained that obesity is currently measured using the reference of Body Mass Index (BMI) which is only applicable to white people.
"But few people really recognize this," he said as quoted by Reuters. Institutions like the WHO and CDC have yet to adopt ethnicity-specific BMI cutoffs for overweight and obesity.
Compared to the whites, nonwhite adults were at least twice as likely to have diabetes. Diabetes rates for the caucasians with a BMI of 30, the lower threshold for obesity, were equal to diabetes rates for South Asians with a BMI of 22, blacks with a BMI of 24, Chinese women with a BMI of 24 and Chinese men with a BMI of 26.
Researchers have suggested that a combination of genetic and environmental factors play a role in different body fat patterns by ethnicity, but there has yet to be a clear explanation to the suggestion.
REUTERS | CHETA NILAWATY
