Walk away

Vegetarian Times, June, 2002

Eager to avoid being one of the 15 million people who suffer from Type 2-or adult-onset--diabetes? Eat better and exercise, simple as that. An improved diet and even a 30-minute walk five times a week can be even more effective in preventing Type 2 diabetes than medication, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has found. More than 3,000 overweight people from 25 to 85 participated in the government's Diabetes Prevention Program, the results of which were published in the February 7, 2002, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. Participants who ate more nourishing meals and exercised regularly cut their risk of diabetes by 58 percent, compared to a 31 percent decrease by those who were given the drug metformin, which is sold under the brand name Glucophage.

This is good news, though what Allen Spiegel, MD, director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, calls the "surging epidemic" of diabetes has probably been preventable all along.

This "epidemic" has coincided with the recent increase in obesity among Americans. "For the first time, we know that Type 2 diabetes can be prevented," says Christopher Saudek, MD, president of the American Diabetic Association. "It may be as simple a solution as getting up off the couch and eating a healthier diet."