Bookmark & Share

Favorites	Google
Digg	Del.icio.us
Twitter	Facebook

>> More...

A study published online in the Lancet suggests that diet and exercise can significantly delay or even prevent the onset of diabetes, HealthDay reports. According to recent statistics, approximately 24 million U.S. adults, or about 11 percent of the population, have diabetes, and an additional 57 million overweight adults have higher-than-normal blood sugar levels, increasing their risk of a heart attack or stroke and the likelihood of then developing type 2 diabetes. To evaluate the effectiveness of diabetes treatment interventions, a researcher at the U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases randomized 3,234 overweight or obese adults with elevated blood sugar levels to either lifestyle changes, metformin to control their blood sugar or a placebo. After 10 years, 2,766 individuals were remaining in the study. Of those, participants assigned to take metformin experienced an 18 percent reduction in their rate of developing diabetes compared with those taking a placebo. However, the biggest reduction in risk was observed among those who made lifestyle interventions, including reducing caloric and fat intake and exercising at least 150 minutes per week. Specifically, individuals who made such changes reduced their risk of developing diabetes by 34 percent, compared with those taking placebo. Over the study period, after all the participants made lifestyle changes, the yearly diabetes incidence rates for the drug and placebo groups had dropped to approximately 5 percent to 6 percent, mirroring rates observed among the lifestyle group. Meanwhile, the researchers found that, during the first year, individuals in the lifestyle group lost an average of 15 pounds, but regained all but five of those pounds over the remainder of the study period. Individuals taking metformin, meanwhile, maintained a five pound weight loss across the decade-long study period, while those on placebo lost fewer than two pounds. Based on this data, the study's lead author concludes that "lifestyle intervention, even when provided later, also seemed to lower diabetes incidence rate." Meanwhile, writing in an accompanying editorial, the director of the department of diabetes and metabolic at Fortis Hospitals in India notes that "diet and exercise remain the most important modalities to prevent diabetes, and any drugs are less important." To that end, he calls for at-risk groups, such as ethnic minorities, to be identified as early as possible and taught the appropriate lifestyle interventions to reduce diabetes risk. He concludes that "spreading awareness about proper lifestyle and adverse consequences of obesity and diabetes should be at the top of health agenda of all nations" (Reinberg, HealthDay/Yahoo! News, 10/28/09; Knowler et al., Lancet, 10/29/09 [subscription required]; Misra, Lancet, 10/29/09 [subscription required]).