Don't Just Sit There, Do Something! Part 9 Diabetic Mortality

Is there anyone who doesn't need to exercise regularly?  More importantly, are diabetics excluded from the general admonishment that non-diabetics need to engage in moderate intensity physical activity at least 150 minutes/week.  In a paper published early online in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the authors concluded that higher levels of physical activity in diabetics were associated w/lower all-cause & cardiovascular mortality compared to non-active diabetics.  Even walking as little as 2 hours a day was enough to lower death rate from all-causes & heart disease compared to those who walked less than 2 hours/day.

In order to arrive at their conclusion, the authors followed for over 9 years the 5,859 male & female diabetic participants, avg 58yo, of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer & Nutrition.  On average, they were overweight w/body mass index of 28kg/m2 w/Hemoglobin A1c of 8+%.  Regardless of activity of choice, doing something regularly was better than doing nothing, despite the usual confounders.

More importantly, this isn't the first study to come to this conclusion.  In fact, a meta-analysis (study of studies) of this study, EPIC Greece, NHANES III & Framingham came to a similar conclusion.  Haven't we heard of this before?  Check out Part 8.  Then get out there and do something!

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