The diabetes epidemic in Guatemala is worse than previously thought.
More than 25 percent of its indigenous people, who make up 60 percent of the population, suffer from type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes, suggests a new study published in PLOS One from researchers at the Penn Center for Global Health, in collaboration with the University of San Carlos in Guatemala City and the Hospitalito Atitlán. That’s almost double the rate from a diabetes estimation back in 2003. The team also found that the driving force behind the epidemic is not obesity—most often associated with an increased risk of the disease elsewhere in the world—but aging.
Indigenous populations, including those living in Guatemala, are disproportionately affected by type 2 diabetes, compared to their urban counterparts and those living in developed nations. However, a lack of data has prevented researchers from corroborating this pattern in the Central American country. Though underlying genetic susceptibilities, along with socioeconomic reasons, have been suspected to play a role, the risk factors have not been fully understood.
“This alarming increase in both diabetes and pre-diabetes appears to be significantly related to aging, and not obesity or BMI (body mass index)—a surprising finding that contradicts the traditional relationship we know between unhealthy weights and these diseases,” says first author Kent D.W. Bream, an assistant professor of clinical family medicine and community health at the Perelman School of Medicine and the Center for Global Health. “While it remains unclear why such a disparity exists in this population, some studies have pointed to increased physical inactivity and insulin resistance as drivers of diabetes in the elderly.”
Read more at Penn Medicine News.
