Preventing Diabetes
by Staff EditorFamily history is a factor in type 2 diabetes. So your brothers and sisters and your children are at risk for type 2 diabetes if you have it. If your husband or wife has shared your diet and lifestyle for many years, he or she may be at risk also. You are in a position to let people you love know they are at risk-and help them diminish that risk.
The exception is type 1 diabetes. No one is certain what triggers it in the first place, so unfortunately there's no way to stop it.
Type 2 can be prevented. On August 8, 2001, the results of a landmark study called the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) were released by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Participants in the study were people at high risk for devel¬oping type 2 diabetes. The DPP participants were overweight and had impaired glucose tolerance-their blood glucose lev¬els were higher than normal, but they were not yet diabetic. Two different approaches were tested to see if they could keep these at-risk people from developing diabetes. One group tried diet and exercise. The other group was given Glucophage (metformin). Both approaches worked. The diet and exercise group reduced their risk of developing diabetes by a whopping 58 percent! The Glucophage group also reduced their risk of developing diabetes, by 31 percent.
What did the people in the diet and exercise group have to do to get such great results? Did they have to starve themselves until they were as skinny as supermodels? Not at all! On average, this group did 30 minutes of physical activity per day-mostly walking. They lowered the amount of fat in their diet and lost just 5 to 7 percent of their body weight-typically about 15 pounds. This study is particularly encouraging because it proved that diet and exercise work for everybody-African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian-Americans, and Pacific Islanders, as well as Caucasians. All these groups were included in the trial, and all were successful. It was also encouraging to see that the diet and exercise approach worked better among adults older than 60 than any other age group. This is very important, because American adults over 60 have the highest rate-20 percent-of type 2 diabetes.
So don't let the people you love put themselves at risk for a disease they can avoid. The same things that are recommend¬ed above all for people with diabetes-weight control and exercise-have been proven to effectively prevent it.
