|
HowToPreventHeartDisease.com |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Are Diet And Exercise Best For Diabetes Prevention? People with Type-2 diabetes have excess glucose in their blood, either because their body does not produce sufficient insulin to process it, or because their body does not use insulin properly (insulin resistant). The disease is striking an ever-increasing number of adults, as well as teenagers and children. More than 24 million Americans have diabetes, and about 6 million of them do not even aware that they have the disease. If nothing is done to curb the spread, the number of people diagnosed with diabetes is expected increase from about 16 million in 2005 to 48 million in 2050. Worldwide, the number of adults with diabetes will rise from 285 million in 2010 to 439 million in the year 2030. Diabetics are at a higher risk of developing many diseases including blindness and kidney failure, heart disease, and high blood pressure. Diabetes can also cause mild to severe nerve damage, and trigger diabetes-related circulation problems that often leads to the loss of a leg or foot. Fortunately, Type-2 diabetes is preventable. About 9 cases in 10 could be avoided if the people take these simple steps: keeping weight under control, exercising more, eating a healthy diet, and not smoking. A study that was published online September 13, 2015 in ‘The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology’ indicated that diet and exercise outperformed the drug metformin in preventing people from developing diabetes. Metformin, which helps control blood sugar, can be used alone or in combination with insulin to treat Type-2 diabetes.
A long-term (15 years) follow-up was carried out on 2,776 participants who were randomly assigned to either an intensive lifestyle intervention or 850 milligrams of metformin twice daily and a group taking a placebo from the original DPP trial in the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study conducted between 1996 and 2001. These participants were all overweight or obese and had high blood sugar levels that place them at very high risk for developing diabetes. During the follow-up period, diabetes cases were lower by 27 percent in the diet and exercise group and 18 percent in the metformin group, compared to the placebo group. In 2014, 55 percent of the lifestyle group, 56 percent of the metformin group and 62 percent of the placebo group had been diagnosed with diabetes. Participants were also tested for the changes in the tiny blood vessels of the kidney and retina and for nerve damage over time, which are associated with diabetes. Overall, the presence of these microvascular complications did not differ between groups. But among women, the lifestyle group was less likely to show this kind of damage. 1887 women in the diet and exercise group showed lower risk for microvascular complications by 21 percent compared to metformin and 22 percent compared to placebo. Also, participants who did not develop diabetes showed a 28 percent lower prevalence of microvascular complications compared to those who manifested diabetes. It was surprising that although lifestyle changes did reduce the risk of diabetes, they did not always reduce the risk of microvascular complications. The researchers explained that the complications that they were studying represent the early manifestations of this microvascular disease and were generally asymptomatic, and it usually takes between 10 and 20 years for these complications to become clinically serious. The American Diabetes Association recommends that lifestyle interventions should be the first choice for diabetes prevention and metformin should be given to those who are younger and more obese people. In fact, metformin could be especially useful in people who are unable to follow diet and exercise strictly, who are obese, have polycystic ovarian disease, or cannot walk or exercise due to physical infirmity. Metformin is a low cost drug that could be useful in underprivileged populations also. According to health experts, when one is exercising, the muscles can use and get the glucose required without insulin so the blood glucose level will go down. If one is insulin resistant, exercise actually causes the insulin resistances to go down and the cells can use the glucose more effectively.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
Copyright
2007-2012 © HowToPreventHeartDisease.com . All Rights Reserved.d........ |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
