Is it possible to prevent type 2 diabetes?
Type 2 diabetes is really preventable. The first thing you have to do is know you're at risk. And really try to figure out not only if you're at risk, but if the people in your family are at risk. The real way to prevent type 2 diabetes sounds simple but it isn't. It means you need to lose weight if you're overweight and exercise. Now, it doesn't mean that you need to become thin. If you need to lose a hundred pounds, you don't have to do that to prevent diabetes. You only really have to lose about fifteen pounds, about seven percent of your body weight. So for a lot of people, that's twelve to twenty pounds. If you lose that weight, and if you keep it off; it will prevent diabetes. Now, in addition you need to exercise, and I don't mean running marathons although that might not be bad. What you really want to do is to exercise for thirty minutes a day, five days a week and we think that walking, for instance, is a very good way of getting exercise. Also, just gently going out, just moving your body, increasing your exercise, and if you can over time increasing the intensity this is perfect. But getting exercise and losing weight prevents diabetes. For a lot of people, that's really hard to do. And everyone's busy and people don't have the time to do it and the really important part is that people don't have the time to maintain it. So a lot of people can lose twenty pounds but keeping that twenty pounds off is the hard part. So a lot of individuals will develop diabetes gradually and there's now ways we can try to use different medications that are actually meant for treating diabetes but if we use them earlier we can prevent diabetes. But my key message is lifestyle. So if you have an overweight fifteen year old and you or someone in your family has type 2 diabetes, the best thing you can do for that kid is to really work with them in terms of helping them choose healthy lunches, giving them breakfast, getting them to do physical activity, making habits young that will last for a lifetime and that's how you prevent diabetes.
