How To Prevent Type 2 Diabetes

How can we prevent type 2 diabetes?

We know from a very large study called the Diabetes Prevention Program which was done almost 10 years ago now, that in people at higher risk for type-two diabetes, people who have a high genetic risk because they have a family history, because they have a history of some other risk factor, for example, women who have had large babies or women who've had gestational diabetes, people from certain ethnic groups that have higher risk... in those groups, the aggressive approach is to changing life style.

And they're really not all that aggressive. It's moderate diet reduction, reducing the diet 500 calories a day, exercising 30 minutes five times a week. Exercise for this was only walking, it wasn't jogging, it wasn't lifting weights, or getting on a tread mill, it was simply walking 30 minutes a day. That could reduce the risk of type-two diabetes in these high risk people by 67%, by two thirds. Drugs also can reduce the risk by 50 to 60 percent, but life style will do even as well, if not better, than drugs.

So I think our first approach should be to really work hard to try to figure out ways to make each person who's at risk understand the importance of this and then find with them the right approach to improving their life styles.