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Fall 2011 - Institute of Medical Science - University of Toronto

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COMMENTARY<br />

Tell us what you think<br />

“Just a quick email to congratulate [your<br />

team] on the IMS Magazine. Very interesting<br />

content and nice to get a flavour <strong>of</strong><br />

what else is happening at IMS.”<br />

– Colin McCartney, Associate IMS Member<br />

“Congratulations! The magazine looks brilliant.”<br />

– Santhosh, IMS student<br />

“[The magazine] looks great and the content<br />

is interesting and well put together…<br />

Looking forward to future issues.”<br />

– Wilfred Ip, IMS student<br />

“The magazine looks fantastic and reads<br />

extremely well with an excellent balance <strong>of</strong><br />

interesting articles about students, faculty,<br />

staff and the life as an IMS student. ”<br />

– Dr. Karen Davis, IMS Associate Director<br />

What to look for next issue:<br />

The Surgical Management <strong>of</strong> Obesity by<br />

Dr. Teodor Grantcharov<br />

Commentary<br />

Dear Editor:<br />

I read the most recent (Summer <strong>2011</strong>) edition<br />

<strong>of</strong> the IMS Magazine with great interest<br />

and enjoyed its focus on obesity/BMI. The<br />

magazine only briefly mentioned that BMI<br />

varies across ethnic groups. I would like to<br />

elaborate more on these ethnic variations using<br />

empirical evidence from my IMS PhD<br />

thesis findings.<br />

Many agree that the definition <strong>of</strong> obesity<br />

(BMI≥30) is inappropriate in non-white<br />

populations and that lower cut<strong>of</strong>f values are<br />

required for Asian populations, however no<br />

previous study has been able to pinpoint exactly<br />

what the BMI cut<strong>of</strong>f values should be<br />

for specific Asian ethnic groups. I therefore<br />

conducted a multiethnic cohort study <strong>of</strong> approximately<br />

60,000 non-diabetic adults aged<br />

30 years or over living in Ontario. Subjects<br />

were identified from Statistics Canada’s population<br />

health surveys and were followed for<br />

up to 12.8 years for diabetes incidence using<br />

record linkages to multiple health administrative<br />

databases.<br />

The study found that for the equivalent incidence<br />

rate <strong>of</strong> diabetes at BMI 30 in the<br />

White group, the BMI cut<strong>of</strong>f value was 24<br />

in the South Asian group, 25 in the Chinese<br />

group, and 26 in the Black group. Moreover,<br />

the risk <strong>of</strong> diabetes was significantly higher<br />

among the South Asian (hazard ratio (HR):<br />

3.40, p

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