PONE-D-19-24183

Does a rise in BMI causes an increased risk of diabetes?: Evidence from India

PLOS ONE

Dear Ms. Gupta,

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PLOS ONE

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3. We noticed you refer several times to a "causal" relationship in your manuscript. Please consider carefully whether or not this study allows for such conclusions.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: I congratulate authors for the nicely written manuscript. The hypothesis's are well defined and presented. However, there are some minor suggestion for improvising the manuscript.

General:

Grammar needs slight improvisation; in terms of tenses used in the manuscript.

Introduction

Page 5; 3rd Paragraph; 6th Line: "We convert the reported blood glucose levels into an ordinal measure by dividing it into three categories": Authors are requested to either specify the categories here in the text or mention that the ordinal classification is elaborated later in Methods section.

Page 6: 2nd Paragraph; Individuals with diabetes are less likely to report having a good health as compared to the non-diabetic individuals; Authors may provide reference.

Page 6: 2nd Paragraph: There is repetition in the manuscript, which is adding to the length of the chapter. The authors have time and again highlighted that ‘The findings of this paper have policy implications...’ (Page 6, Page 35). It would be in the interest of the paper that the language is kept crisp and to the point.

Methods

Page 7: ‘We test the third and fourth hypotheses for a sub-sample comprising of overweight or obese population as they are expected to be facing a higher risk of diabetes.’ Not sure what do authors mean by this. Hypothesis 3 and 4 could have been tested for the entire group (not only the sub sample).

Reviewer #2: Present study examines whether rise in BMI is associated with an increased risk of diabetes in a large household data from India.

Main strengths of the present study are strong data and analytical methods (the use of IV-analysis).

The study is, however, difficult to follow as it contains so much information that is not present in a best possible way.

I have the following suggestions how the present study could be improved.

Introduction

Introduction could focus only on the study background factors and previous evidence. The study aims could be outlined in the last chapter of the introduction. Methodological details could be moved to methods and potential policy implications to discussion.

Plos One does not permit footnotes so they should be removed and the information included to the text, if needed.

Methods

From this section, hypothesis should be moved to the introduction. Separate the subchapter for data, measurements, and statistical analyses, preferably in this order, could be created. Descriptive statistics and their interpretation could be moved to the first chapter in results.

Results

The results contain multiple tables, could some of these moved to online supplement appendix?

Discussion

In the present format, discussion is rather limited. Potential policy implications of the present findings should be discussed. Similarly it would be important to discuss generalizability of the present findings. Potential limitations of the instrument variable should be discussed.

Could the statistical analytical code be included in the online appendix?

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Does a rise in BMI causes an increased risk of diabetes?: Evidence from India

PONE-D-19-24183R1

Dear Dr. Bansal,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it complies with all outstanding technical requirements.

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With kind regards,

Petri Böckerman

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: