Can thin people get type 2 diabetes?
Answered by the AskDoc Medical Team · Medically reviewed under our Medical Director, MBBS
Yes. Around 10 to 15 percent of people with type 2 diabetes are not overweight. Genes, fat stored around the organs rather than under the skin, muscle loss with age, and some ancestries carry risk at lower body weights.
South Asian and East Asian adults, for example, develop insulin resistance at BMIs the charts call normal.
Family history plus any symptoms, or simply turning 35, justifies a screening HbA1c regardless of the mirror. Thin does not mean exempt.
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