A decade-long study published in the venerable New England
Journal of Medicine (NEJM) which means these findings are akin to coming
directly from God (everyone knows, of course, that God is clearly a doctor) has
concluded (very depressingly) that among diabetics, a group that has an
exceedingly high risk of stroke and heart attack, losing weight does not seem
to reduce the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.
In this study, the control group and the group that
focussed intensely on weight loss and lifestyle adjustment had roughly the same
number of deaths over the nearly 10 years of the study, which terminated early
because of the lack of evidence to continue it.
So: losing weight won’t help, right?
Not so fast.
First, neither of the groups lost as much weight as one
would have liked to see to figure out if weight control has any effect.
Second, the intense lifestyle group did have better kidney
function and fewer eye complications (both are frequent complications of
diabetes).
Anyway, for me, the bottom line is something else: by the
time you try to change your life around after you’ve been diagnosed with
diabetes, it may be too late to make a big difference in your life expectancy,
so why not, eh, make those adjustments before you develop diabetes.
Just suggesting.
