Preventing diabetes
"We are not very healthy in America," the Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson has warned. "We are overweight. We don't exercise. The incidence of diabetes and obesity among Americans is up sharply in the last decade. Even modest changes in lifestyle can make a big difference in health."
Research studies in the United States and abroad have found that lifestyle changes can prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes among high-risk adults. These studies included people with
high-risk characteristics for developing diabetes.
Lifestyle interventions included
diet and moderate-intensity
physical activity (such as walking for 2 1/2 hours each week). For both sexes and all age and racial and ethnic groups, the development of diabetes was reduced 40 percent to 60percent during these studies that lasted three to six years.
Studies have also shown that
medications have been successful in preventing diabetes in some population groups. In the Diabetes Prevention Program, a large prevention study of people at high risk for diabetes, people treated with the drug metformin reduced their risk of developing diabetes by 31percent. Treatment with metformin was most effective among younger, heavier people - those 25 to 40 years of age who were 50 to 80 pounds overweight.
There are no known methods to prevent type 1 diabetes. Several clinical trials are currently in progress.
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National diabetes fact sheet: general information and national estimates on diabetes in the United States, 2000.
Read what Dr. Jeffrey Katt, FACP, internist, with Advanced Healthcare, says about preventing diabetes and what factors put you at risk.
