Identification of Obesity in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes From Australian Primary Care
The NEFRON-5 Study
- Merlin C. Thomas, MBCHB, PHD, FRACP1,
- Paul Zimmet, MD, PHD, FRACP, FACE, FAFPHM, AO2 and
- Jonathan E. Shaw, MD, MRCP, FRACP2
- 1Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation/Danielle Alberti Memorial Centre for Diabetes Complications, Baker Medical Research Institute, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- 2International Diabetes Institute, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Address correspondence and reprint requests to Merlin Thomas, Danielle Alberti Memorial Centre for Diabetic Complications, Baker Medical Research Institute, P.O. Box 6492, Melbourne, Victoria 8008, Australia. E-mail: mthomas{at}baker.edu.au
The recognition of obesity by treating physician is fundamental to the management of diabetes (1). In this article, we describe the frequency of obesity in patients with type 2 diabetes in Australian general practice and examine the identification of obesity by general practitioners.
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—
The National Evaluation of the Frequency of Renal Impairment cO-existing with NIDDM (NEFRON) study was an incident-driven, clustered, stratified survey of 3,893 patients with type 2 diabetes in the Australian primary care setting. Investigator selection and patient characteristics are described elsewhere (appendix 1 [available at http://care.diabetesjournals.org]) (2).
Caucasian individuals with a BMI 25.0–29.9 kg/m2 were classified as overweight, while those with a BMI ≥30.0 kg/m2 were classified as obese (3). In Asian patients, overweight and obese categories were defined by a BMI ≥23 and ≥25 kg/m2, respectively (4). Waist circumference was measured halfway between the lower border of the ribs and the iliac crest on a horizontal plane. Men with a waist circumference between 94.0 and 101.9 cm and women with a waist circumference between 80.0 and 87.9 cm were classified as overweight. A waist circumference ≥102.0 cm in men and ≥88.0 cm in women classified abdominal obesity, except in patients of Asian ethnicity where the World Health Organization Expert Committee on Obesity in Asian and Pacific populations has recommended that a waist circumference of 90.0 cm for men and 80.0 cm for women can be used for identifying individuals with abdominal …
