With diabetes and older than 65? You may still gain weight to lower your chance of dying

It’s usually advised to maintain an appropriate body weight for those with type 2 diabetes. In order to reduce their chance of passing away from any cardiovascular illness, people over 65 may still maintain a “moderately overweight” weight, according to a recent study.

Based on health data from the UK Biobank, the results show that the lowest risk of dying from cardiovascular disease was associated with persons 65 years of age or younger who maintained a Body Mass Index (BMI) within the normal range of 23–25.

However, the lowest risk was associated with moderately overweight (BMI of 26–28) people over 65.

Shaoyong Xu of Xiangyang Central Hospital, an Affiliated Hospital of Hubei University of Arts and Science in Xiangyang, China, said, “Importantly, we demonstrate that optimal BMI for people with type 2 diabetes varies by age, independent of traditional cardio-metabolic risk factors.”

According to Xu’s results, maintaining weight rather than lowering it may be a more sensible strategy for older people who are moderately overweight but not obese to lower their risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.

Reducing the risk of cardiovascular illnesses requires maintaining a healthy weight, especially for those with type 2 diabetes who are more susceptible to cardiovascular disease and mortality.

In order to draw their conclusion, scientists looked at how age differences affected the relationship between BMI and cardiovascular mortality risk in 22,874 UK Biobank individuals who had previously been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

All of the participants were 59 years old on average, with around 59% of them being female.

Data from two age groups—the middle-aged (65 years or under) and the elderly (over 65)—were analyzed by researchers.

According to the authors, in the future, risk would be further refined by the use of central obesity markers like waist circumference.