Long-term efforts to help people with type 2 diabetes lose weight and exercise more can improve their quality of life. But such lifestyle interventions may not reduce the risk for heart attacks or strokes.
The Look Ahead trial stands for Action for Health in Diabetes. Over 5,000 overweight participants were randomly assigned to either an intensive diet and exercise program or to a control group that received general diabetes education.
The goal was for the intervention group to lose at least 7% of their body weight and to maintain that weight loss over the roughly 10 years of the study. During the first year they exceeded the goal and were actually able to maintain about a 6% lower weight over the decade.
The active group practicing improved diet and exercise had less kidney disease, lower blood sugar and required less medicine than the control group. Unfortunately, though, the primary outcomes, fewer heart attacks and strokes and better survival, were not significantly better. The investigators conclude that intensive lifestyle intervention can help people lose weight and keep it off for long periods of time. That makes diabetes easier to manage and boosts well being, even if it may not save lives.
[New England Journal of Medicine, online June 24, 2013]
To learn more about lifestyle approaches to this condition, you may want to listen to our interview about Diabesity with Dr. Mark Hyman. The one-hour radio show was #854, The Blood Sugar Solution. We also have several recommendations in our 8-page Guide to Managing Diabetes.
