Diet, exercise slow rising blood sugar levels

Seems like this just won't admit that a LC woe (with exercise) could solve
this problem for most folks.....

http://www.netrition.com/cgi/news.cg...050214171000_0

Diet, exercise slow rising blood sugar levels
2005 February 14

By David Wahlberg
ATLANTA -- Richard Mehlan knew he was at risk for diabetes. He is
overweight, he has high blood fat levels, and his mother had the disease.
But until last month, the 57-year-old didn't know he had "pre-diabetes." The
term, recently coined by health officials, indicates a partly elevated blood
sugar level that will likely develop into full diabetes within 10 years if
nothing is done to stop it.
Scientists now have proof that something can: a healthy diet and exercise.
Doctors have known for years that type 2, or adult-onset, diabetes usually
comes on gradually, often as people gain weight.
Their insulin production dips or their bodies don't use insulin effectively
anymore; their blood sugar level rises, but not high enough to have diabetes
right away.
Until recently, doctors didn't know for sure if anything could be done to
ward off diabetes in people whose blood sugar levels had started to creep
up.
That changed three years ago. In a major study, researchers found that diet,
exercise and certain medications can slow or even reverse the progression of
pre-diabetes to diabetes. That can prevent diabetes complications such as
blindness, kidney disease and amputation.
The landmark study has led health authorities on a twofold quest: Doctors
want to identify the 41 million Americans thought to have pre-diabetes
(another 18 million have diabetes; the vast majority, type 2) and encourage
them to take action to improve their health.
"If you know you're at risk and you can do something about it, it's a
powerful motivator," said Dr. Michael Engelgau, with the national Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Diabetes Translation.
The challenge is to pick out the people with pre-diabetes without wasting
time and money testing a lot of people who don't.
One approach is being studied at Emory University. Researchers are looking
at expanding to the general population the two-step screening process
routinely performed on pregnant women, who sometimes develop diabetes
temporarily.
Mehlan was one of the first people in the Emory study found to have
pre-diabetes.
He wasn't surprised: At 6 feet 2, he weighs 295 pounds; his triglycerides,
or levels of fat in the blood, are high; his mother, who died two years ago,
had diabetes.
Mehlan had already been trying to eat better and exercise more, but the news
of having pre-diabetes has given those efforts a boost. Now he's cooking
broccoli, cauliflower and chicken -- baked, not fried -- and trying to walk
half an hour a day.
As spring approaches, he is also planning to get more physical activity out
of mowing the lawn. There is strong evidence that making lifestyle changes,
as Mehlan is doing, helps.
The Diabetes Prevention Program study, funded by the federal government and
published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2002, tracked 3,200
people with pre-diabetes. Those who exercised half an hour, five days a
week, and lost 7 percent of their weight through a low-fat diet were 58
percent less likely to progress to diabetes after three years.
Other people who took the drug metformin were 31 percent less likely to get
diabetes. Another trial found that another drug, acarbose, reduced the risk
of diabetes by 25 percent.
"That was the turning point," said Dr. Charles Clark of Indiana University,
former chair of the National Diabetes Education Program. "It got everybody's
attention."
The study led the American Diabetes Association to issue new guidelines:
anyone 45 and older who is overweight should be checked for pre-diabetes,
along with younger people who also have other risk factors, such as high
blood pressure, low levels of HDL (or "good") cholesterol or being
African-American or Latino.
Some doctors are already testing more people for pre-diabetes.
But the two tests normally used aren't patient-friendly.
The Emory study is looking at a simpler alternative, now done on pregnant
women. It's called a glucose challenge test. People have to drink a sugar
solution, but they don't have to fast. Blood is taken only once, and it's
possible a finger stick may do.
People who test positive would then take the more intensive oral glucose
tolerance test, considered the gold standard for diagnosing pre-diabetes or
diabetes. The study, which started in January and is funded by the National
Institutes of Health, aims to test 2,100 people over three years. It is
limited for now to employees of Emory, Grady Memorial Hospital and Morehouse
School of Medicine in Atlanta and their family and friends.
If the Emory researchers find that the glucose challenge test works well in
the general population -- and is cost-effective -- it could someday become
part of routine medical checkups
David Wahlberg writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
E-mail: Editor Notes:
Copyright: c.2005 Cox News Service
Show all Health News headlines