Diabetes
3. Risk factors
The following are risk factors for diabetes:
- Being overweight makes developing Type 2 diabetes much more likely and so does inactivity. In fact, the more overweight and unfit you are, the greater your risk of diabetes.
- Diabetes tends to run in families, so if a close relative has diabetes then you are more likely to develop it.
- Age is also factor and Type 2 diabetes becomes more common the older you get.
- If you are from an African-Caribbean or South Asian background you are 3 to 5 times more likely to have diabetes than people with a European background.
- Finally, women who have given birth to large babies or who developed temporary 'gestational' diabetes when they were pregnant are more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes.
