Research

Energy balance

In adults with type 2 diabetes, weight gain is associated with a significantly increased risk of cardiovascular disease events and all-cause mortality, whereas intentional behavioral weight loss interventions have not demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in CVD events.

For adults with type 2 diabetes, gaining weight is clearly linked to higher risks of heart disease and death. However, simply trying to lose weight through diet and exercise has not been proven to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events in this population, according to this review. Patients should focus on overall cardiovascular risk management rather than assuming weight loss alone protects the heart.

ModerateQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
Weight gain (vs no change) was associated with higher hazard of CVD events (HRs [95% CIs] ranged from 1.13 [1.00, 1.29] to 1.63 [1.11, 2.39]) and all-cause mortality (HRs [95% CIs] ranged from 1.26 [1.12, 1.41] to 1.57 [1.33, 1.85]). ... Behavioural interventions targeting weight loss showed no effect on CVD events (pooled HR [95% CI] 0.95 [0.71, 1.27]; I2 = 50.1%).
Jean Strelitz et al. · Diabetologia · 2021

Why this rating

Systematic review of observational studies and RCTs, but observational studies had moderate/high risk of bias due to confounding and self-reported weight.

Source

Association between weight change and incidence of cardiovascular disease events and mortality among adults with type 2 diabetes: a systematic review of observational studies and behavioural intervention trials

Jean Strelitz et al. · Diabetologia · 2021

DOI 10.1007/s00125-021-05605-1

Meta-analysis · 17 studiesCited 38×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →