We've known for years that excess weight can often lead to diabetes, and be unhealthy in a myriad of other ways. After new research, scientists and health professionals are even more convinced that being overweight is a dangerous one-way road to diabetes.

Nearly three out of four morbidly obese 18-year-old men, for example, will develop type 2 diabetes in their lifetime. And 35 percent of 18-year-old women who are simply overweight will contract the disease.

"This is the first time we were able to collect the type of data needed for these observations," said study author Dr. K.M. Venkat Narayan, chief epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The research "can help us to know where to focus our attention."

Researchers were surprised to find that overweight 18-year-olds were at a higher risk than overweight 'older' people.

"The message here is, compared to a person with normal weight, a person who is overweight or obese at age 18 has a substantially higher chance of developing diabetes during his or her lifetime," Narayan said.

Dr. Robert J. Rushakoff, an associate clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said the study findings are "alarming" but valuable to doctors.

"Since prevention is so important, physicians and other health-care providers can make use of these dramatic numbers to talk to patients and try to start a move to better diet and exercise," he said.

In consideration of the importance of diet and exercise, we will spend much more time investigating tips and programs to make diabetics--and everyone--healthier.