Low birth weight may be linked to an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a study.

Researchers at Harvard University found that people who are a low weight at birth and have unhealthy habits as adults, such as eating nutritionally poor diets or smoking, may have a greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes than people born at an average weight who live a similar lifestyle.

"Most cases of type 2 diabetes could be prevented by the adoption of a healthier lifestyle, but these findings suggest that efforts focused on early life development, such as improving nutrition for pregnant women, could prevent additional cases," Lu Qi, senior author of the study and associate professor in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard Chan School, said in a statement.

For the study, researchers analyzed health data from nearly 150,000 men and women tracked by three large ongoing trials for 20 to 30 years. Participants were scored on five lifestyle factors: diet, smoking, physical activity, alcohol consumption, and body mass index.

The researchers documented 11,709 new cases of type 2 diabetes during the study period. They found that 22 percent of these cases could be attributed to a lower birth weight alone, 59 percent to unhealthy lifestyle alone, and 18 percent to the interaction between both factors.

"Our findings suggest that the public health consequences of unhealthy lifestyles would be larger in low birth weight populations," Yanping Li, lead author and research scientist in the Department of Nutrition, said in a statement. "This is of critical importance in the developing countries undergoing rapid epidemiologic transition from traditional to Western lifestyles, such as China and India, where the prevalence of the Western dietary pattern, cigarette smoking, sedentary activities, obesity, and diabetes has been increasing dramatically, and low birth weight is still highly prevalent."

The findings are detailed in The BMJ.