• A researcher from Lille, Professor Philippe Froguel, and his team, have been conducting a study called PrevenDiab for a year and a half, within the Institute for Research on Diabetes (Egid).
  • The first results seem to show a link between obesity and precariousness. This while the study also plans to show that early management would be beneficial for prediabetics.

Obesity rhymes with precariousness. This is the observation that emerges in the conclusions of a study called PrevenDiab and led by a Lille researcher, Professor Philippe Froguel, and his team, for a year and a half, within the Institute for Research on Diabetes (Egid). On the occasion of World Obesity Day, this Saturday, 20 Minutes takes stock of this study which aims to demonstrate that a precarious life is an aggravating factor in triggering diabetes.

"As surprising as it may seem, no specific study had been launched on the link between precariousness and diabetes," says Philippe Froguel, whose research team discovered in 1998 a first gene responsible for certain forms of diabetes and obesity. But if this diabetes specialist has advanced genetic knowledge around obesity, he does not avoid environmental causes: "Overall, weight variations are related for 70% to genes and for 30% to the environment. "

Hope for improved prevention

Conducted with the Institut Pasteur health center in Lille, the PrevenDiab study is already following 750 patients considered precarious by the National Health Insurance Fund. The study targets 2,000 volunteers. With, in mind, the hope of improving prevention. "The first results show a number of prediabetics, that is to say with a blood sugar level too high, greater than 50% in these precarious people compared to the average," explains Professor Froguel. It remains to be determined which facets of precariousness are most associated with poor health.



A study in Finland had already shown that the number of children per family, living far from city centres or whether parents smoked or not, were all factors in obesity. "We know, for example, that tobacco makes insulin less effective," says Professor Froguel. But there is still much to discover about this disease that is obesity. »

Less "twenty years of life expectancy"

And the stakes are high. "There are many causes and we have to find them, even if it's not simple," admits Philippe Froguel. Because obesity accelerates aging. An obese person loses twenty years of life expectancy. And it's not just a matter of diet or prevention. "If you have addiction problems, dieting is useless, on the contrary, if you are the victim of a genetic disorder of appetite control," warns the researcher.

Thus, the second part of the study provides for the care of prediabetic people, via associations specializing in precariousness. "The primary goal is to reintegrate these people into the health system," he explains. This is a point that goes beyond the research side and is just as complicated. Then we can see whether or not this early management is really beneficial. That is the other objective of the study. »

Treatment for teens suffering from severe obesity

A team from EGID in Lille, led by Dr. Amélie Bonnefond, has just demonstrated that, in children, certain forms of severe obesity of genetic origin can be treated by a drug. "These results reveal the importance of genetic diagnosis to detect these forms that lead to a failure of satiety and appetite control," EGID said in a statement.

After 25 years of effort, setmelanotide, whose development stems from discoveries made in 1998 by Professor Philippe Froguel's team, is finally available in France to treat these young adolescents who are severely overweight. "However, this drug is very expensive, about 300,000 euros per year, and causes some side effects, warns the Research Institute. Also, it should be reserved for children with genetic obesity who can be specifically targeted by this drug. »

  • Health
  • Diabetes
  • Obesity
  • Research
  • Researchers
  • Scientific
  • Lille
  • Hauts-de-France
  • Precariousness