Higher levels of physical activity are associated with a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, with the relative difference particularly pronounced among people under 63. At the same time, given the higher overall prevalence of diabetes, additional physical activity could potentially prevent more new cases of the disease among older people. These are the findings of researchers from Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands. The results will be presented at the annual congress of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), which will take place in Milan from September 28 to October 2, Medical Xpress reports.
The researchers analyzed data from 87,975 UK Biobank participants who did not have diabetes when they entered the study. The participants had a mean age of 63, and 57% were women. For seven days, they wore a wrist-worn accelerometer that recorded their physical activity levels. The researchers assessed the amount of time participants spent engaging in moderate- and vigorous-intensity physical activity.
Over 7.7 years of follow-up, 2,140 people, or 2.4% of participants, developed type 2 diabetes. In the group with higher levels of physical activity, the median amount of time spent in such activity was 409 minutes per week, compared with 121 minutes in the lower-activity group.
After adjusting for age, sex, ethnicity, education level, smoking, sleep duration, family history of diabetes, and other factors, the researchers found that participants with lower levels of physical activity had approximately twice the relative risk of developing diabetes.
The difference was particularly pronounced among people under 63. In this group, low levels of physical activity were associated with more than a twofold increase in the relative risk of diabetes compared with participants who were more physically active. Among people over 63, the corresponding difference was 65%.
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