Exercise and Weight Loss: Best Antidotes to Diabetes by Dr. David Lipschitz on Creators.com

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Exercise and Weight Loss: Best Antidotes to Diabetes

Today, 24 million Americans — about 8 percent of the population — have diabetes. Another 57 million have elevated blood sugars and are at high risk of developing diabetes.

Most of these Americans have Type 2 diabetes, often referred to as "adult onset diabetes," which is associated with being significantly overweight. Fortunately, new research recently published in the Lancet clearly shows that in those at high risk of developing diabetes, weight loss plus exercise can delay the appearance of the condition by as long as 10 years. More importantly, researchers found that lifestyle changes were more effective than treatment with medications.

For Type 2 diabetics, being significantly overweight leads to a condition called insulin resistance. The blood sugar rises, as do serum insulin levels, but the ability of the insulin to pump sugar into the cells is impaired. This in turn leads to diabetes, which is a major cause of coronary artery disease, chronic renal disease, damage to the peripheral nerves, skin ulcers and breakdown, and vision loss.

As the American population becomes more and more overweight, the percentage of people with diabetes is not only increasing at an astronomical rate, but the disease is also appearing in younger people.

Once diabetes has been diagnosed, treatment focuses on diet, exercise and medication. Most diabetes centers spend the majority of time educating patients on how to eat with diabetes, the importance of exercise and the need to lose weight. Unless the patient has impaired kidney damage, the initial medication prescribed is the generic drug metformin, which has clearly been shown to help reduce blood sugar and minimize complications from diabetes. In this new study, researchers divided 3,234 patients into three groups. One implemented aggressive lifestyle changes, another group used metformin to control blood sugars and a final group received only a placebo (a sugar pill).

Ten years later, the research showed that losing weight by reducing calorie and fat intake and exercising 150 minutes a week led to a 34 percent lower risk of diabetes than in the groups receiving either the metformin or the placebo.

The diet and exercise group lost, on average, 15 pounds during the first year, but gained 10 pounds of it back over the next 10 years.

Despite this, the risk of diabetes was still reduced. All of the patients in this group continued to exercise, which may have been one of the major factors leading to lowered risk of diabetes.

Exercise builds muscle, which in turn improves metabolism and facilitates normal blood sugar levels. Even overweight people who exercise have less insulin resistance than chubby people who are sedentary. In the fight against diabetes, strength training to build muscle mass is critically important.

The message is clear. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is the key to preventing disease. And yet, this seems such a difficult task for our nation. Despite a major commitment to education, most diabetics have little enthusiasm for the lifestyle changes necessary to control their diabetes. As a consequence, those who fail to compulsively manage their illness often require more than one medication, become more prone to serious complications and have a worse prognosis.

The facts about diabetes are merely one symptom of a larger problem. Virtually every parameter of Americans' health is deteriorating. From heart disease to cancer, we are missing the greater message — no matter how advanced the treatment, prevention and developing healthy habits are the keys to longevity. Unfortunately, with huge advances in medical therapies and amazing breakthroughs in disease management, many Americans wrongly assume that doctors can "fix" any problem and a simple pill can reverse any disease.

While many pills do seem to work miracles, the more important, and more difficult, challenge lies at home — outside the clinic walls. You must take responsibility for your own health and make every effort to live a healthy life. Eat right, exercise and manage your stress.

Without a renewed focus on disease prevention, Americans will lose the battle against chronic illness. Costs will continue to rise, doctors will be more and more overwhelmed and the medical system may buckle under the pressure. While we all know that health care must change, the greatest change begins with ourselves.

Dr. David Lipschitz is the author of the book "Breaking the Rules of Aging." To find out more about Dr. David Lipschitz and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. More information is available at www.DrDavidHealth.com.