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Healthful behaviors associated with lower likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes
Clinical Question
Are healthful behaviors associated with lower likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes?
Bottom line
Exhibiting healthful behaviors — healthy body weight, healthy diet, regular exercise, smoking abstinence or cessation, and light alcohol consumption — is associated with a lower likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes. This is an association; it does not mean that counseling people to follow these behaviors will lessen their likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes. It simply gives some motivation to people who are following these healthy habits to keep doing them. 2a
Reference
Study design: Meta-analysis (other)
Funding: Foundation
Setting: Various (meta-analysis)
Synopsis
These authors identified cohort studies (but not randomized studies) by searching 3 databases, including Cochrane CENTRAL, as well as reference lists of retrieved articles and Google Scholar. Two researchers independently selected research for inclusion and abstracted the data. The research had to involve tracking the relationship between at least 3 behaviors (including healthy body weight, healthy diet, regular exercise, smoking abstinence or cessation, and light alcohol consumption) and the subsequent development of type 2 diabetes. They found 30 cohort comparisons enrolling a total of 1,693,753 people, of whom 75,669 (4.5%) developed type 2 diabetes. The risk of bias of the studies was low and there was no evidence of publication bias. Adhering to at least 3 of these behaviors was associated with an 80% lower risk of type 2 diabetes (relative risk 0.20; 95% CI 0.17 - 0.23) when comparing the people with the highest adherence to the behaviors to those with the lowest adherence. There was no difference in outcomes when evaluated by sex, though the behaviors seemed to have a greater impact on people younger than 50 years.
Reviewer
Allen F. Shaughnessy, PharmD, MMedEd
Professor of Family Medicine
Tufts University
Boston, MA
Comments
Poor population data
Cannot make conclusions on this pooled data
Impact assessment
Excellent
Excellent information.
Excellent common sense info.
HEALTH BEHAVIORS
GOOD TO KNOW
Antipsychotics and type 2
I wonder if this could improve the rates in individuals on antipsychoticswith the higher associated rate of type 2
Healthful behaviors associated with lower likelihood of deve
Well a relative 80% lower risk of Type 2 diabetes associated with these typical "good lifestyle" habits is one I am willing to continue to press patients on.