Diabetics who have a low body mass index (BMI) have a unique metabolic profile compared to other groups of diabetics, and could be a distinct entity warranting further investigation, a recent article in Diabetes Care has argued.
The study looked at the metabolic factors in subjects who were recruited at the Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, against control groups comprising individuals with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, and similar BMI subjects without diabetes. It was conducted with the Global Diabetes Institute, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, U.S.
“Diabetes among individuals with low BMI has been recognised for over 60 years as an entity in low and middle income countries (LMIC), and classified as malnutrition-related diabetes mellitus, by the WHO,” says Nihal Thomas, co-author, and head of the department of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, CMC Vellore. The need to establish low BMI (or lean) diabetes (LD) as a distinct form of diabetes, and thereby seek attention for it, arose because the WHO withdrew this category in 1999 due to lack of substantial evidence, he adds.
