Follow-up data from the Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study showed that a four-year intensive lifestyle intervention reduced the risk of type-2 diabetes by 43 per cent, even three years after intervention had ended. During active intervention, the risk of type-2 diabetes was cut by 58 per cent, said the research at Lancet Online.
This contrasts with data from the DREAM study, released in September, which showed that 8 mg daily rosiglitazone for three years in addition to lifestyle interventions reduced the risk of patients with IGT or impaired fasting glucose transferring to type-2 diabetes by 60 per cent.
Chairman of the Primary Care Diabetes Society, County Down GP Dr Colin Kenny, said: ‘Exercise intervention is a more effective intervention and more acceptable regarding side effects. However, he added that ‘the intervention is really quite intensive, it would be much harder to transfer into the NHS.’
