For example, when we eat a piece of bread, once digested into glucose. Glucose circulates through the bloodstream to feed every body cell. The presence of glucose stimulates beta cells of the pancreas to release insulin. Insulin reaches every cell and acts like a key in their receivers, to open their doors and allow glucose to enter. If there is no insulin or the cell receptors do not function, glucose can not enter cells, and the affected person will suffer from nutrient deficiencies.

What happens in the cells of our tissues in the presence of glucose in different metabolic situations?
Normal: When insulin binds to insulin receptors of cells, glucose can penetrate their membranes and used. This is the normal situation.
Type I: when the pancreas does not produce insulin, glucose can not enter body cells and used. This is called insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) or Diabetes Type 1.
Type II: When the insulin receptors of cells in the body do not function, insulin can not be attached to them and the glucose can not enter body cells and used. This is called diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) or Diabetes Type 2.

If nothing changes, in some years, diabetes mellitus type 2 are among the leading causes of death among those that consume more healthcare resources. Their treatment, increasingly expensive and complex, slow down the deleterious effects of insulin deficiency but, ultimately, the body suffers. Prevention is the best weapon.

Since the 90’s there have been many studies about the most appropriate strategies to slow the onset of type 2 diabetes in individuals at high risk of developing it. Prevention Program Diabetes, launched in U.S. in 1996, is one of them. More than 3,000 pre-diabetic participants were assigned to one of three prevention programs: change in lifestyle, prescription of metformin (a common anti-diabetic) or placebo.

The journal The Lancet is now publishing the results of this investigation and monitoring done to these subjects during the following decade. In their view, lead a healthier life, understood here by 7% to reduce the weight and do at least 150 minutes of exercise a week, reduced the rate of diabetes onset by 34% after 10 years, compared with placebo. For its part, metformin reduced it by 18%.

This means that “at this time, participants in the group the change in lifestyle four years delayed the onset of type 2 diabetes two years the metformin group compared with placebo, has said David Nathan of Massachusetts General Hospital and director of the study.

Leading a healthy lifestyle is key

However, the effectiveness of these interventions varies according to the time when analyzing. After the end of the first intervention period, which lasted 2.8 years, the introduction of a healthy lifestyle reduced the incidence of diabetes by 58% and metformin by 31%. At that time, between 5% and 6% of the individuals subjected to changes in your lifestyle developed the disease each year and 8% of those taking the antidiabetic and 11% for the placebo group.

But after the conclusion of the trial itself (in 2001), the authors made available to all participants on diet and exercise program. This, ultimately, along with some ‘relaxation’ of those already being followed, matched the incidence in the three groups of around 6%.

Adopting healthier habits, including those aimed at losing weight, have a better diet and more exercise will have a sustained long-term impact on health in general, at least in the prevention of diabetes and with a little luck in the prevention of complications associated with it.

Patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus not responding properly to insulin, the hormone responsible for glucose to enter cells. If this sugar can not enter them, accumulates in the blood resulting in numerous problems, especially cardiovascular and renal diseases.

Prevention of diabetes is a long and winding road. It seems that there is no short and intense intervention, persistent and prolonged lifestyle is the most effective way to reach it.

According to the latest report from the International Diabetes Federation, today there are nearly 300 million people affected by diabetes, of which over 85% have type 2. It is expected that by 2030 the figure reaches 435 million, driven especially by the epidemic of overweight and obesity affecting much of Western countries.