Diabesity: A Lethal Combination

Diabesity is a concept that relates two metabolic pathologies that unfortunately affect a large percentage of the population: diabetes and obesity.

What is Diabesity?

Obesity is a pathology that for years now has shown no signs of stopping its growth around the world.

This has socioeconomic consequences, and, of course, seriously affects the health of our population.

Obesity is often accompanied by other clinical complications such as type 2 diabetes.

This is because both entities share physio-pathological mechanisms.

As a result, some authors have chosen to unite both terms when obesity and type 2 diabetes coexist.

What are the symptoms

The clinical manifestations of diabesity are attributable to its two components: diabetes and obesity.

In this respect, we come across a problem: diabetes and obesity do not cause pain and are paucisymptomatic (give few symptoms).

Or at least until we reach advanced stages of both diseases, where the complications discussed in the next section occur. In any case, the symptoms would be those of the complications of these pathologies.

And I speak of a problem because if the excess of adipose tissue or diabetes were to generate symptoms, we would act sooner to put a stop to it.

It all starts with an excess of adiposity, which results from a chronic excess of energy due to individual, social, economic, psychological, emotional, commercial, environmental and even political factors.

This excess fat tissue begins with few repercussions, but as the amount of fat increases, what is known as “lipotoxicity” begins, or damage that the excess fat can exert on other internal organs such as the liver, pancreas, kidneys or heart.

In time, the patient develops a resistance to the insulin hormone in their peripheral tissues, and, finally, an alteration of the hydrocarbon metabolism that justifies the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes.

What risks does Diabesity bring?

There are multiple risks related to diabesity.

For its part, obesity is linked to a whole host of complications, some of them lethal. These include:

Avoiding processed foods to combat diabesity.

Type 2 diabetes is linked to:

All these circumstances progressively and silently deteriorate the patient’s health, until the irreversible complications of diabetes appear: diabetic nephropathy, diabetic retinopathy or even diabetic polyneuropathy.

Who suffers form the disease?

It’s clear from the above that everyone overweight or obese is at risk of suffering from “diabesity” (or simply from developing type 2 diabetes).

In fact, up to 85.2% of those with type 2 diabetes are obese or overweight.

In 2025, it is estimated that more than 300 million will have this association with diabetes and obesity.

How do you treat Diabesity?

Treatment for diabesity (type 2 diabetes + obesity) has advanced greatly in recent years.

Nevertheless, and as much as we doctors are committed to developing new drug therapies, lifestyle changes are the most important and first line treatment.

We have hygienic-dietary interventions that are being tested as useful tools in the management of these two conditions.

And we can’t forget about low-carb or keto diets, which also play an important role, especially in certain types of patient.

For example, this randomised clinical trial with the ketogenic diet in 34 overweight adults with type 2 diabetes showed a lower A1C (glycaemic control marker) and less need for medication at the end of the study (Boden et al., 2005).

Alongside this, pharmacotherapy has also advanced a lot.

Today, we have medication that both helps with weight-loss and improves glycaemic control at the same time.

Diabesity care

With respect to diabesity care, you could write whole books on the topic, but I’ll outline some of the key points that might be of use to readers:

Bibliography

1. Boden, G., Sargrad, K., Homko, C., Mozzoli, M., & Stein, T. P. (2005). Effect of a low-carbohydrate diet on appetite, blood glucose levels, and insulin resistance in obese patients with type 2 diabetes. Annals of Internal Medicine.
2. Zimmet, P., Alberti, K. G. M. M., & Shaw, J. (2001). Global and societal implications of the diabetes epidemic. In Nature.

Related Entries

• In this article we tell you about the importance of preventing obesity from a young age.
• Can Microbiota be key in tackling obesity? We tell you here.
• Everything you need to know about the Ketogenic Diet you can find by visiting this link.