Results from the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study (DPPOS) showed that modest weight loss and increased physical activity successfully lowered the rate of type 2 diabetes after 10 years. This effect was most pronounced in those 60 or older.

The study results were published in the British medical journal Lancet. The study followed for 10 years, people who had been diagnosed with impaired fasting glucose, otherwise known as “pre-diabetes”. The purpose of the DPPO was to study the long term effect of diet and exercise and the diabetes medication, metformin, on the delay of type 2 diabetes.

One group took metformin, a well known anti-diabetic medication, while the other group focused on life-style changes that included modest weight loss and increased physicial activity. A third group received a placebo instead of metformin.

Those in the life-style changes group delayed the onset of type 2 diabetes by 4 years compared with placebo, while those in the metformin group delayed the onset by 2 years according to Dr. David M. Nathan, one of the principal investigators of the study. He went on to say in a statement from the National Institue of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases which funded the program, that “…people age 60 and older lowered their rate of developing type 2 diabetes in the next 10 years by about half.”

This is good news for anyone diagnosed with pre-diabetes showing that simple changes in your activity level to promote weight loss really does work.