Exercise and Blood Sugar

Back to the China Study and the benefits of exercise and managing one's blood sugar. Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center, said that lifestyle is the best medicine has been established by an impressively consistent array of research findings spanning populations and decades. Not only that, careful attention to eating well, being active, controlling weight, and avoiding tobacco has been shown to reduce the lifetime risk of all major chronic disease by 80 percent. "This study shows first, that an intervention focused particularly on diabetes prevention has generalized benefits," Katz said. "This is not very surprising, since the causal and protective factors for all of the prevalent chronic diseases are interrelated. The same diet and activity pattern that helps prevent diabetes does the same for cardiovascular disease," he added. "Second, and more surprising, this study suggests that a robust lifestyle intervention program of sufficient duration is a gift that keeps on giving, conferring benefit for years after it concludes," Katz said. "This offers important promise with regard to the cost-effectiveness of such interventions." So if you've been wondering whether developing a high-level-healthiness lifestyle is worth the work, my brain's opinion is "yes."  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure . . .

Guangwei Li, M.D., department of endocrinology, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing; David Katz, M.D., M.P.H., director, Yale University Prevention Research Center, New Haven, Conn.; April 3, 2014, The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, online.