Loading...
Lifestyle factors affect risk for developing diabetes. To evaluate the cumulative effect of such factors on this risk, U.S. researchers analyzed data from a prospective cohort study that involved more than 200,000 participants (age range, 50–71) without known diabetes at baseline (1995–1996).
On questionnaires completed between 2004 and 2006, 8.6% of the participants reported physician-diagnosed diabetes. People in the low-risk group for individual lifestyle factors (physical activity, smoking status, alcohol intake, body-mass index [BMI], and diet) had lower risk for incident diabetes than people in higher-risk categories for each factor. These lifestyle factors also had an additive effect. For example, women in low-risk categories for diet…