Does My Ethnicity Affect My Risk of Developing Diabetes?
Dr. Barrett-Connor answers the question: 'Ethnicity Affect Diabetes Risk?'
— -- Question:Does my ethnicity affect my risk of developing diabetes?
Answer:Yes, it is, it is true that people of color have a higher risk of diabetes, and it's not understood why that's true, that's true for every group whether they're South Asian, East Asian, Filipino, African-American, Hispanic-Americans, the bare-skinned people from Northern European seem to have a protection against again type-2 diabetes, the non-insulin dependent requiring, adult, usually, adult onset diabetes. So if you are a member of a so-called ethnic-minority, which in California is not the minority anymore, but if you are a non-white person, then your risk of diabetes is higher than if you're not. Similar to that seems to be related to the fact that people who are white seem to be less likely to put their weight in the center of their belly, which is a strong risk factor for diabetes, and even slender people who are Asian, South Asian or East Asian, may have a lot more fat in their abdomen so you can't tell that they're overweight, they may not think they're overweight, but they put whatever fat they have in the belly instead on the hips and the thighs, where it's much safer, so, for at least those and some other unexplained reasons it is true that people who are not white need to be particularly interested in diabetes, try to stay perhaps thinner than white people might be worried about, and have your doctor check your glucose every once in a while.
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