Illustration: Diabetes is correlated with a high level of sugar in blood. (Image via Everyday Health)

Blame your genes! Shorter people are more vulnerable to diabetes. Why?!

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Business & Industry
Medical and Health
Sep 10, 2019
1894
While common advice for you to be clear off terminal diseases such as cancer or diabetes is to live healthily, sometimes, you can also blame your genes. While tall people are more vulnerable to cancer, short people are said to be more vulnerable to type-2 diabetes.

According to the International Diabetes Federation, about 420 million people in the world are suffering from type-2 diabetes, and the number is expected to grow to over 620 million in 2045.

Type-2 diabetes is a type of diabetes where your cells resist insulin generated by your pancreas to convert sugar into energy. Because it resists insulin, your blood contains a high level of glucose and type-2 diabetes occurs. Type-1 diabetes, on the other hand, renders our body unable to generate insulin.

According to a study published in the journal Diabetologia on Tuesday (10/9), short people are more vulnerable to the disease. The research, conducted in Germany, invited about 26,000 with more than 2,500 middle-aged men and women. The objective of the research is to prove the corroboration of height as a useful marker for type-2 diabetes.

Besides their lifestyle, education, and diet, the researchers also focused on their heights, especially sitting heights and leg length. For men, the researchers measured from under 170 cm to above 180 cm for men, and under 158 cm to above 168 cm for women.

After recapitulating the previous aspect (age, education, and lifestyle) with the height measurement, the researchers found out that after all, how tall you are correlates with how close you are with diabetes.

Furthermore, the researchers wrote that for each 10 cm in height, the risk for diabetes decreases by more than 30% as taller people have more sensitivity to insulin and their pancreas possess special cells that secrete insulin faster and better than shorter people.

The study noted that height and body fat might be related to the risk level of type-2 diabetes as people with greater heights have less liver fat than the shorter ones. Shorter people are advised to monitor and control their liver fat. Not only type-2 diabetes but also to prevent cardiovascular diseases.

On the other hand, some said that the researcher is not yet plausible. Height is just a secondary data, and more research about height and type-2 diabetes need to be done.

Source: https://www.afp.com/en/news/3954/shorter-people-run-higher-risk-diabetes-study-doc-1k57v01

Medical , Health , Research , Study , Diabetes , Height