A Few Simple Steps for Diabetes Prevention

Researchers from the U.S. Institutes of Health report reveals that people can cut their risk of diabetes up to eighty percent just by following a few simple steps. The more you meet the goals of the steps the lower risk you have regardless of family history of diabetes.

Practitioners for a long time now have made it clear bad habits such as smoking and consuming unhealthy foods not only increase your risk for type 2 diabetes but other chronic diseases as well.

This new study currently is the largest type to date by being the first study to examine how several healthy habits together affect the risk for diabetes.

Dr. Jared Reis, PhD, lead author of study, epidemiologist with the National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute had remarked the question they were attempting to address was if there benefits to each individual lifestyle change you make and it appeared the answer was yes.

Researchers had examined information from over 200,000 men and women in eight states that were part of the long term study on diet and health led by the National Cancer Institute. During the mid 90's when participates age ranged from 50 to 71 and had no signs of serious illness, participants answered detailed questionnaires concerning their lifestyle, diet, medical history, physical characteristics and demographic profile.

After ten years, around nine percent of the men and women had developed diabetes. Among participants who had less risk of developing diabetes had shared five main health aspects. In each one of those aspects showed a remarked decrease for the risk of developing diabetes.

Among the aspects for example was consuming a health diet which had showed a 15% decrease for risk while not smoking had a 20% decreased risk. A healthy lifestyle had shown 31% decrease for men and 39% for women.

Dr. Spyros G. Mezitis, diabetes expert at Presbyterian Hospital in New York had remarked that for a long time it has been acknowledge that lifestyle factors affect prevention, development and management of diabetes. He further notes that a combination of lifestyle factors can decrease the risk of developing diabetes.

Those five simple steps:

Healthy diet: participants had consumed lots of fiber, little trans fat and very few refined sugars or sugary carbs and had a high ratio of good to bad fats.

Maintain normal weight: participants were not overweight or obese. They maintained bodie mass below 25 for example a 5' 6" female weighing 155 pounds.

No Smoking: Participants either never had been smokers or been smoke free for ten years.

Minimal to no drinking: If participants drank they did so in moderation. Two or less drinks for men and one or less drinks for women.

Physical activity; Participants had twenty minutes of heart pounding, sweating activity for twenty minutes at the rate of three or more times each week.

Physical activity is especially vital if you have type 2 diabetes. It helps to maintain your diabetes by numerous factors such as improving the body's use of insulin, lowering blood pressure and aides to guard against heart and blood vessel disease by decreasing the bad cholesterol and increasing the good. However, if your blood sugar is high you should postpone exercising until it is lowered.

In case you're wondering what type of exercise to do the latest evidence has shown that exercise such as strength training has a serious impact on aiding people with diabetes. One recent study had shown that Hispanic men and women who had sixteen weeks of strength training had remarked improvements in sugar control as compared to taking diabetes medication. The participants in the study gained muscle mass, were stronger, decreased body fat, less depression and had gained more self confidence.

Simple rule to follow any activity that increases your heart rate and keeps it there for an extended period of time does improve your aerobic fitness. Aerobic exercises aide in decreasing the risk of type 2 diabetes and aides those with diabetes to have better management of their blood sugar levels. Walking fast and swimming laps are also heart pounding exercises.

The American Diabetes Association has made available online sections to help persons with diabetes on food and exercise. It can be viewed at the American Diabetes Association Food and Fitness.

Sources:

US News

CNN

Web MD