Exercise and good diet will cut risk of diabetes

A HEALTHY lifestyle can help slash the risk of diabetes by 75 per cent.

Brisk walks and eating plenty of fruit and vegetables also more than halves heart disease and death rates among people who already have the condition.

The findings add to evidence that good habits help prevent a host of life-threatening illnesses – even in those genetically prone.

The study was based on more than a million participants across the world – some of whom were monitored for more than two decades.

A combination of regular exercise, a plant-based diet, moderate drinking, seven hours’ sleep a night and not smoking lowered Type 2 diabetes risk by 75 per cent.

Professor An Pan, of Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China, said: “Tackling multiple risk factors, instead of concentrating on one, should be the cornerstone for reducing the global burden of Type 2 diabetes.”

Reduced

His team also found it benefits the management of Type 2 diabetes – caused by poor diet and lack of physical activity.

Diabetics with the healthiest habits reduced their risk of death from any cause, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer by 56, 49 and 31 per cent respectively.

They were also 52 per cent less likely to develop CVD compared to “couch potatoes”.

Prof Pan said: “The findings indicate healthy lifestyle interventions could reduce CVD outcomes in persons with Type 2 diabetes.”

His team pooled data from 24 studies involving 1,150,000 people from the US, Asia,Australia, New Zealand and Europe – including the UK.

One in 10 over 40s in the UK are now living with Type 2 diabetes.

There are almost four million diabetics – nine in 10 having the Type 2 form. Meanwhile, almost two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese.