Diet Alone Undermine Diet and Exercise for Type 2 Diabetes Patients

A recent study found a very unlikely result about the effectiveness of diet and exercise combo. Researchers from the University of Bristol, England, reports diet alone did no better than diet and physical activity for type 2 diabetes patients. It further says that diet is better than the standard care being received by such patients.

The results followed three groups of recently diagnosed type 2 diabetes patients, numbering to 500 30 to 80-year-old participants. Individuals in the first group received regular help and advice on improving their diet. The second group was given the same dietary advice, but also received help to increase their daily levels of exercise. The final group, which served as control group, received standard care only. At the end of one whole year, blood sugar levels of those in standard care group spiked and the mean HbA1c rose. On the other hand, the diet only group as well as the diet and exercise group had mean HbA1c drop.

The study faces more questions, though, than the results that it considered as light shed. First question concerns the significantly short period of study. It doesn’t necessarily spell the long term effect of combined diet and exercise versus the diet only and or the standard and diet care. There was not even a plausible suggestion as to what these groups will be able to achieve in a period of more than one year.

Scrutinizing the picture more critically, the study did not consider the effects that could have been achieved if participants did undergo more intense exercise and other physical activities. Neither did the study consider whether there has been any kind of reward system, such as food reward, which could have affected the results of the study.

As for the researchers, the findings must be treated as suggestion that intervention at the early stage of type 2 diabetes should focus on improving diet, since the additional cost of training health-care workers to promote activity might not be justified.

“Translation of these results into community settings requires concerted efforts by patients, dietitians, and clinicians... There is little doubt that improved nutrition and physical activity are beneficial for individuals with or without diabetes, and research into the most effective way to deliver these benefits (including individual behavioural changes and creation of a supportive food and social environment) deserves high priority," the researchers admitted.

Note: The research is not recommended by any medical institution or authorized health care organizations. Patients view of the treatment that they are currently receiving should unnecessarily be affected. Otherwise, both the patients and out dedicated professionals in nursing scrubs will have to deal with needless burden.