Ten-year trial shows how to prevent diabetes

Thursday October 29th, 2009

People whose poor diets, unfitness and weight put them at risk of developing diabetes can be helped to stave the disease off for a decade with a choice of treatments, researchers reported last night.

Life-style changes or the anti-diabetes drug metformin can both prevent the development of the disease, researchers said.

The treatments were offered to more than 3,000 people with high blood sugar levels putting them at risk of developing diabetes in the near future.

Researchers found that intensive lifestyle improvements were even better than the drug treatment.

This involved exercise, improved diet and frequent contact with health professionals and it cut the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 58 per cent over three years. Over a decade it cut risk by 34 per cent.

In contrast treatment with metformin cut the three-year risk of developing the disease by 31 per cent, according to the findings reported on-line in The Lancet.

Researcher Dr Neil White, of Washington University, St Louis, USA, said: "Changing one's lifestyle to better health habits, including those aimed at reduced weight, a better diet and more exercise, will have long-term and sustained impact on overall health, at least in preventing diabetes and hopefully in preventing complications associated with diabetes and prediabetes.

"Even if the weight loss is slight, it will have huge benefits."

The researchers said that lifestyle improvements delayed the onset of diabetes by about four years - while drug treatment delayed it by about two years.

Writing in The Lancet, Dr Anoop Misra, of Fortis Hospitals, New Delhi, India, says drug treatment may be best for those who are too disabled to undertake physical activity.

He says: "Prevention of diabetes is a long and winding road. There seems to be no short cut, and a persistent and prolonged intensive lifestyle intervention seems to be the most effective mode to travel on it.

"However, more research needs to be done with dietary (eg, high-fibre, low-glycaemic-index foods), physical activity (aerobic plus resistance exercise), and pharmaceutical (especially glucagon-like peptide-based therapies) manipulations to prevent diabetes."

The Lancet October 29, 2009 DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61457-4

Tags: Asia | Diabetes | Diet & Food | Fitness | North America

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