Walk More to Reduce Your Diabetes Risk

The findings of a new research suggest people who are less physically active are at a high risk for diabetes

But those who spend more time walking throughout the day have a lower tendency to actually develop the blood sugar disorder.

“Engage in very little exercise, even minimal amounts of physical activity “will provide a really good return on their investment,” said Catrine Tudor-Locke, whose research focuses on walking and health at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and was not part of the study, which appeared in the journal Diabetes Care.

How many steps should you take each day?

The daily amount of walking recommended is usually at least 10,000 steps a day. A good rule of thumb is that 2,000 steps is equivalent to about one mile, said Tudor-Locke.

Studies in the past (based on questionnaires), have demonstrated that spending more time walking is linked to a reduced diabetes risk. However, few studies have employed accurate measures as to the number of steps people take every day, said Amanda Fretts, the lead author of the new study and a researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle.

To have a better understanding of the potential beneficial effects of walking, Fretts and her team asked more than 1,800 people to put on a pedometer on their hip for one week in order to count the number of steps they usually took each day.

All of the study participants came from Native American communities in Arizona, Oklahoma and North and South Dakota that are noted to be less physically active and with high incidence of diabetes.

An estimated 25 percent of the group were considered to have very low activity levels, walking little with fewer than 3,500 steps per day, while about 50 percent took fewer than 7,800 steps a day.

Walking and diabetes risk

Not one of the participants had diabetes at the start of the study. However, after a follow-up period of five years, 243 people had developed the blood sugar disorder.

Of the participants with the lowest activity, an estimated 17 percent developed diabetes, compared to 12 percent of the people in the group who took at least 3,500 steps per day.

After accounting for participants’ age, whether they were smokers and other risk factors of diabetes, Frett and her colleagues found that people who took the greatest number of steps had a 29 percent lower risk of developing diabetes compared to those who took the least number of steps.

Reuters Health said Fretts wrote in an email that their finding was not unexpected considering that other studies have demonstrated that even low activity level is linked to a reduced diabetes risk.

The role of BMI

While the results do not offer proof that walking more is the reason behind the lower risk of diabetes, Fretts gave some likely explanations as to how walking might help.

According to her, higher levels of physical activity may keep excess pounds away and facilitate weight loss, a key determining factor of diabetes risk.

In fact, when Fretts took into consideration the size of the people, according to a measure known as body mass index (BMI), she found that walking more did not offer any beneficial effects to lowering people’s risk of diabetes.

Fretts said, “BMI is one of the plausible biological mechanisms by which physical activity (or walking) may lower diabetes risk” — that is, walking may facilitate weight loss — which is a key factor associated with diabetes risk.

In addition, physical activity affects the inflammatory process, and has effects on glucose and other substances in the body that could help reduce the risk of diabetes, Fretts further said.

The potential beneficial effects of moderate levels of walking are only for people who are really inactive in the first place, and do not suggest that others should reduce their activity levels, Tudor-Locke added.