Researchers find diabetes in obese no less likely to escape diagnosis

NEW YORK Researchers from the Harvard Medical School and Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have found that diabetes in obese people is as likely to dodge diagnosis as it is in slim people.

While being obese increases the chances of developing diabetes, the researchers reported in the September issue of the journal Diabetes Care, that it did not increase the chances that the diabetes will be diagnosed.

The researchers examined data on 5,514 people who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 1999 and 2004. They found that 10 percent of survey participants had diabetes, and 28 percent had not been diagnosed. There was no statistical significance, however, between participants’ body-mass index and the likelihood that they would be diagnosed.