At least in diabetes prevention:
http://diabetes.webmd.com/news/20091028/diet-beats-drugs-for-diabetes-prevention?ecd=wnl_day_103109
-- Lifestyle changes resulting in long-term weight loss of just a few pounds
proved to be roughly twice as effective as drug treatment for preventing type 2
diabetes in an ongoing government-sponsored trial.
Researchers followed almost 3,000 high-risk patients for a decade in one of the
largest and longest studies aimed at preventing diabetes ever conducted in the
U.S.
Roughly a third of the participants were initially asked to eat a low-fat diet
and engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate activity a minimum of five times
a week, with the goal of losing 7% of their body weight within a year. Another
third were put on the diabetes drug metformin; the remaining patients initially
received no intervention.
Many of the people in the lifestyle intervention group met the weight loss
goal, losing an average of 15 pounds during the first year of the study.
While they regained, on average, 10 of those pounds during the next seven
years, the lifestyle intervention group continued to have the lowest rates of
diabetes...
...Three years into the trial, Knowler and colleagues reported that diabetes
incidence was reduced by a whopping 58% in the lifestyle intervention group and
31% in the metformin group, compared to people who received no intervention.
This dramatic difference led the researchers to offer lifestyle intervention,
in the form of group counseling and support sessions, to all three groups for
the rest of the study.
The 10-year follow up analysis, which appears Thursday in TheLancet, shows that:
*Compared to the non-intervention group, patients in the intensive lifestyle
intervention group and metformin group, respectively, were 34% and 18% less
likely to develop diabetes over 10 years.
*Lifestyle intervention was found to delay the onset of diabetes by four years.
Drug treatment delayed diabetes by two years.
*The benefits of intensive lifestyle intervention were particularly strong in
the elderly. Those aged 60 and older in the diet and exercise group lowered
their rate of developing diabetes by half over 10 years...
OK, so I'm still harping on lifestyle as preferable over drugs in treating and
preventing chronic illnesses -- nice to have my opinion backed up so
decisively! (Not that meds aren't often necessary and life-saving; I just
don't like to hear them always put ahead of nutrition and exercise etc.)
Debbi
Ate My Oatmeal This Morning Maru
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