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A high Western dietary pattern score combined with low physical activity or obesity (BMI > 30 kg/m2) is associated with a particularly high risk of type 2 diabetes, significantly higher than either factor alone.

If you are obese or have low physical activity, your risk of type 2 diabetes is drastically amplified if you also eat a Western diet. To minimize this risk, you must address both your dietary pattern (reducing processed meats, refined grains, and sweets) and your lifestyle (increasing physical activity and managing weight). The combination of these factors yields the highest risk, so addressing all is critical.

GoodConditionalHIGH confidence
A high score for the western dietary pattern combined with low physical activity (relative risk comparing extreme quintiles of dietary pattern score and physical activity, 1.96 [CI, 1.35 to 2.84]) or obesity (relative risk for BMI > 30 kg/m2 vs. <25 kg/m2, 11.2 [CI, 8.07 to 15.6]) was associated with a particularly high risk for type 2 diabetes.
Rob M. van Dam et al. · Annals of Internal Medicine · 2002

Why this rating

Same high-quality prospective cohort data as N1.

Source

Dietary Patterns and Risk for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in U.S. Men

Rob M. van Dam et al. · Annals of Internal Medicine · 2002

DOI 10.7326/0003-4819-136-3-200202050-00008

cohort · n=42504Cited 806×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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