Physical activity, healthy diet cut type 2 diabetes risk

Eating green, leafy vegetables may help reduce type 2 diabetes mellitus risk significantly, a new study suggests.

The study, led by Patrice Carter at the University of Leicester and published in the British Medical Journal, found that women who ate one and half extra servings of green leafy vegetables each day cut their risk for developing type 2 diabetes mellitus by 14 percent.

This study is a review of previous studies and as such, has not proven that the association is causal, meaning that it is still unknown whether eating green leafy vegetables can definitely cut the risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus; however, the possibility of a causal relationship cannot be excluded.

For a long time it has been a given that diet may play an important role in the etiology of type 2 diabetes mellitus; many people believe that following a healthy lifestyle can prevent many cases of the disease.

One study, led by Qin L and colleagues from the University of Groningen Medical Center in the Netherlands, demonstrated that physical activity can reduce the risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus by modifying the association between adiposity and the disease.

The researchers, who published their report in the Aug 26 2010 issue of Diabetes Care, examined data from 28,947 Chinese people aged 50 or older attending the Guangzhou Biobank Cohort Study between 2003 and 2008.

They found body mass index, waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio were all positively linked with increased risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus. Specifically, those with highest waist to hip ratio (WHR) were almost 4 times as likely to develop type 2 diabetes as those with the lowest.

Among those who had a high WHR, those who lacked moderate-to-vigorous physical activity faced a near four times higher risk of type 2 diabetes, while those who were physically active had about a 3 times higher risk.

The researchers concluded that "Higher moderate-to-vigorous activity was associated with lower diabetes risk, especially in abdominally obese individuals."

Type 2 diabetes affects about 20 million men and women in the United States. The disease, characterized by symptoms such as blurred vision, erectile dysfunction, fatigue, increased thirst and increased urination, can result in severe complications including death, stroke, heart disease and others.

A healthy lifestyle is believed to be able to help prevent many cases of type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Red meat, processed meat, soft drinks, eggs, fruit juice, and arsenic in drinking water have been associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus, while coffee consumption, brown rice, vitamin d, exercise, plant-based diet, omega-3 fatty acids, garlic, fish, turmeric, micronutrients like selenium, vitamin e, vanadium, and chromium, soy products, Mediterranean diet, L-carnitine, and black tea may help reduce the risk or actually prevent the disease.

By David Liu and editing by Rachel Stockton