Walking and eating for better health
By Susan Milius
Low-fat diets and half an hour of exercise each day slash the risk of developing diabetes by 58 percent among people at high risk, according to a nationwide study. The research also shows that, as an alternative, a drug used to treat diabetes reduces the risk of the disease by 31 percent.
All 3,234 participants in the trial were overweight and had trouble controlling concentrations of sugar in their blood. This condition often leads to type II, or adult-onset, diabetes. The researchers offered one-third of the volunteers regular, individualized counseling about diet and exercise, as well as cooking and gym classes. Another third took the diabetes drug metformin, and the remaining third took dummy pills. Doctors also provided general information on diet and exercise to the metformin and dummy-pill groups. People in the lifestyle-change group lost, on average, about 15 pounds over 3 years of the study.