There are good reasons to try to control T2D by weight loss. The biggest study to date, involving 3m people with an average age of 50, compared health data of people with T2D and those without. Professor Emanuele Di Angelantonio from Cambridge University, who led the project, looked at 116 chronic long-term illnesses and found people with T2D typically developed ‘middle-aged health problems’ five years earlier than those without the condition.