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  • Original Article
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Altered body composition in type 2 diabetes mellitus

International Journal of Obesity volume 32, pages 780–787 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Objective:

To identify differences in amount and distribution of fat and lean soft tissue in a cross-sectional study of subjects with and without type 2 diabetes and to determine whether any differences are affected by race/ethnicity or sex.

Design and methods:

Overweight and obese (body mass index, BMI⩾25 kg m−2) Black, White and Hispanic men (490) and women (825) with type 2 diabetes ((mean±s.d.) age 58.5±6.6; BMI 35.3±5.3) who had a baseline dual energy X-ray absorptiometry whole-body scan at the time of enrollment in the Look AHEAD clinical trial, and 242 healthy controls, 91 males and 151 females (age 55.3±8.6 years, BMI 30.7±4.2 kg m−2) who were participating in unrelated research and were scanned on the same densitometers.

Results:

Adjusted for gender, age, race, clinical site and body size, total fat mass was smaller in persons with type 2 diabetes than in controls (−1.4±0.3 (s.e.); 34.5 vs 35.8 kg, P<0.001) while trunk fat was larger (1.3±0.2 (s.e.); 19.9 vs 18.6 kg, P<0.001) and leg fat was smaller (−1.5±0.2 (s.e.); 10.7 vs 12.3 kg, P<0.001). The arms of subjects with type 2 diabetes did not have significantly less fat compared to controls. Adjusted trunk lean mass was larger in type 2 diabetes by 0.6 kg (28.4 vs 27.8 kg, P<0.001) while leg lean was smaller by 0.5 kg (18.1 vs 18.6 kg, P<0.001).

Conclusions:

Type 2 diabetes is associated with less total fat, leg fat and leg lean mass and more truncal fat and lean mass than controls. The physiological processes producing these deviations in tissue distribution and their metabolic significance warrant further investigation.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Obesity Research Center, St Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, New York, NY, USA

    S Heshka

  2. Department of Biostatistical Sciences, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC, USA

    A Ruggiero

  3. Department of Clinical Research, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana State University System, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

    G A Bray

  4. Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA

    J Foreyt

  5. Department of Medicine, VA Puget Sound Health Care System, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    S E Kahn

  6. Division of Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA

    C E Lewis

  7. Department of Preventive Medicine, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY, USA

    M Saad

  8. Department Epidemiology & Biostatistics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    A V Schwartz

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  1. S Heshka
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  2. A Ruggiero
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the Look AHEAD Research Group

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Correspondence to A V Schwartz.

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Heshka, S., Ruggiero, A., Bray, G. et al. Altered body composition in type 2 diabetes mellitus. Int J Obes 32, 780–787 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ijo.0803802

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