People who adopt a combination of healthy lifestyle practices reduce their relative risk of diabetes by 75%, a worldwide meta-analysis has found. Among people who already have the disease, a healthy lifestyle appears to significantly lower the chance of cardiovascular disease and death.
The researchers analyzed the health data of over one million participants from the United States, Asia, Europe, Oceania, and one global study. They discovered that although bodyweight independently plays a dominant role in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, combined lifestyle factors are more influential. These include physical activity, diet quality and sleep patterns. In fact, several of the analyzed studies reported that each additional lifestyle factor was associated with lowered risk – from 11% to 61%.
Meanwhile, in studies of diabetic individuals, people with the healthiest lifestyles displayed a 56% lower risk of all-cause mortality than those with the least healthy lifestyle. The chance of death from cardiovascular disease and cancer was also significantly lower in the individuals who adopted the healthiest lifestyle practices.
“This supports the recommendations from the American Diabetes Association and other organizations that lifestyle modification should be the cornerstone for the management of diabetes,” wrote An Pan, Ph.D., Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
About 12 million Americans over age 65 have diabetes, both undiagnosed and diagnosed, according to the American Diabetes Association. In addition, in 2015, more than 84 million Americans aged 18 and older had prediabetes, a precursor to the disease.
