Lifestyle factors linked to type 2 diabetes in older adults
Getting exercise and eating a good diet can cut an older person's risk for developing type 2 diabetes nearly in half, a Boston study shows. When combined with moderate alcohol use and not smoking, the risk drops by 80 percent, making the low-risk lifestyles important tools in the battle against a difficult disease.
Healthy behaviors have been effective in other studies of diabetes. In a landmark trial called the Diabetes Prevention Program, improving diet and activity helped overweight people already showing the high blood-sugar levels that mark diabetes. The new study, in tomorrow's Archives of Internal Medicine, followed 4,883 men and women over 65, giving them physical exams and asking about their habits. After 10 years, the researchers compared those who developed type 2 diabetes to those who did not.
Each of five factors -- physical activity, diet, smoking, alcohol use, body mass index, and waist circumference -- was associated with a risk for diabetes. People who were active and ate a low-calorie diet had a 46 percent lower rate of diabetes than people who were inactive and had more more fats and sugars in their diets. If the low-risk people also didn't smoke and had no more than two drinks of alcohol a day, their risk was 80 percent lower than those who smoked or drank more. If their BMI and waist circumference also fell in the normal range, their risk was 89 percent lower than people who did not have any of these low-risk habits.
"Our results provide evidence for a tremendous combined impact of lifestyle on diabetes risk in older adults," the authors, led by Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian of Harvard and Brigham and Women's Hospital write. "Diabetes may be largely preventable among older adults through adherence to ... relatively modest lifestyle goals."
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Old news. The challenging issue is how can people change their behavior sufficiently to mitigate the risk? There is no exisiting evidence for any weight loss plan that is sufficiently sustained to reduce diabetes risk.
Wonder why I'm so skinny, eat right, exercise and have never been overweight and yet I am diabetic. Stop blaming people for diabetes; there is so much more to diabetes that poorly done studies don't show.
So if this is true, then we can prevent this disease (and many others) from causing disability and large necessary public health care expenditures.
Since our state requires health insurance and has been able to do little to reduce the costs to make it affordable so far. Why not tax the dietary causes of excessive health care needs? These funds could be used to reduce the cost of insurance to more affordable levels. In the longer term it would encourage people to eat better to avoid this tax. Either way it is a winning strategy.
Why don't employers make healthy lifestyles easier to implement? The hours worked, long commutes, increasing pressure, lack of vacations, lack of leisure time, all contribute to the sedentary lifestyle that is being blamed for Type 2 diabetes. Individual responsiblity only goes so far in an environment that is not supportive of good health.
CW, in every medical study there are aberrations. Facts are facts and as the study shows diet and exercise do help prevent diabetes. It's bad to be the aberration but accept it.
If more people ate right and exercised then we, as a society, would lower medical costs.
When I was pregnant I had gestational diabetes. I am wondering why there are not more extensive programs for women when they have had gestaional diabetes even if their sugars go back to normal after pregnancy. This would be a great time to educate us about the dangers of getting diabetes later when we have had the problem during pregnancy. I think this kind of training would decrease reoccurring problems in later life. I have developed diabetes as I have aged and my daughter had gestational diabetes when she was pregnant. I asked if her doctors had stressed the importance of changing her lifestyle and she said no.
This should be stressed as soon as the problem develops during pregnancy.
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