"Diabesity"-Obesity and type 2 diabetes (Update 2019)

For several years obesity and type2 diabetes have been increasingly summarized under the name diabesity. This is due to the fact that in most cases obesity precedes diabetes and is the most important risk factor for the worldwide increase of type2 diabetes. The body mass index (BMI) is avery crude measure of body fatness in individuals. Even normal weight persons can have too much body fat in cases of alack of muscle mass (sarcopenia), which is why additional measurements of waist circumference and body fatness, e.g. bioimpedance analysis (BIA), are recommended. Lifestyle management including nutrition modification and increase in physical activity are important measures for the prevention and treatment of diabetes. Regarding the treatment of type2 diabetes, body weight is increasingly used as a secondary target parameter. The choice of anti-diabetic treatment and also concomitant treatment is increasingly influenced by body weight. The significance of anti-obesity medications in the treatment of type2 diabetes will have to be clarified by future studies with body weight as the primary endpoint. Bariatric surgery is at present indicated with aBMI >35kg/m(2) with concomitant risk factors, such as diabetes and can lead at least to partial diabetes remission but has to be incorporated into an appropriatelifelong care concept.