Losing Weight to Improve Type 2 Diabetes

Losing weight and exercising daily during your medical weight loss program may help to improve Type 2 diabetes in some medical weight loss patients.

Being overweight, leading a sedentary lifestyle, and having a high fasting blood glucose level are all risk factors for developing type 2 diabetes that can be corrected with simple lifestyle changes like those made during medical weight loss. But getting people to change their habits is easier said than done, so physicians tend to rely on medications such as metformin to reduce blood sugar.

Results of a large-scale study show that lifestyle changes that include weight loss and engaging in 2.5 hours of exercise each week can decrease a person’s risk of developing diabetes much more effectively than using a medication like metformin. Lifestyle changes also reduce a person’s risk of other lifestyle-related diseases, including heart disease and certain cancers. Rather than leaning on medication, enlightened doctors are making more of an effort to convince their patients of the benefits reaped from making simple lifestyle changes.

Other studies have found that weight loss and increased physical activity provide significant health benefits beyond reducing the risk of diabetes. For example, weight loss and regular exercise can decrease the risk of some cancers and of conditions like high blood pressure that promote heart diseases.

Since lifestyle change is more effective and less costly than metformin and has health benefits that reach far beyond decreasing your risk of developing type 2 diabetes, you should strive to make lasting healthy changes in our habits through your medical weight loss program. The results of those changes may result in a variety of healthy changes that mere medicine cannot produce.