Moderate exercise, such as walking or cycling to work every day, can help keep people with diabetes alive, Finnish researchers reported.

More vigorous exercise helps, too, but the Finnish study shows that people with type-2 or adult onset diabetes can work life-saving exercise into their everyday routines.

"Regular physical activity should be part of standard treatment for diabetic patients," said Dr. Jaakko Tuomilehto, a professor at the National Public Health Institute in Helsinki, Finland.

"People with diabetes need to look for ways to build activity into their work, their commuting to and from work and also their leisure time. Physical activity during commuting is one of the easiest, least-time consuming ways to promote health."

Diabetes is a leading cause of death -- number six in the United States -- and it also greatly increases the risk of heart disease. Exercise can reverse the effects, but Tuomilehto's team wanted to see just how easy it would be to get the right kind of exercise.

"We know that type-2 diabetes can be prevented or at least postponed by physical activity and a healthy diet, but too often people think only of leisure-time physical training or other aerobic activities," Tuomilehto said in a statement.

Writing in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, the Finnish researchers said they reviewed data on 3,316 people aged 25 to 74 who had type-2 diabetes.

These people had filled out extensive surveys on their health and leisure habits.

They defined light commuting as using motorized transportation; moderate commuting as walking or bicycling up to 29 minutes daily and active commuting was walking or cycling 30 minutes or more a day.

Light leisure activity included reading or watching television while moderate activity included more than four hours each week of walking, cycling or light gardening.

The researchers found that moderately active work was associated with a 9 percent reduction in cardiovascular death and active work was associated with a 40 percent reduction in heart or stroke death.

People who ran, cycled heavily or jogged in their leisure time were 33 percent less likely to die and moderate exercisers had a 17 percent drop in risk.

Reference Source 89
July 27, 2004

For more information on how to prevent other diseases, use
PreventDisease.com's "Quick Prevention Resources".