Lack of fitness while young contributes to diabetes later in life

Teens, who aren’t’ active or aren’t into fitness activities have a higher chance of incurring diabetes later on in their lives. Take note that you don’t need to be obese or overweight to have diabetes, study finds.

The study involves 1.5 million Swedes who underwent physical fitness tests when they were enlisted into the military at a very young age of 18. From then on, their health outcomes were closely watched till they were 62 years old.

Fitness still matters even at a tender age

Study finds that diabetes is linked with poor aerobic fitness and low level strength while they were still young triples the risk and it doesn’t have to do with their body weight while they are growing up. The said report was conducted by a team of researchers led by Dr. Casey Crump of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

People who aren’t active are said to have a high change of incurring the said disease later on their life, but it is not known whether physical in-activeness during the early years of life contributes to the high diabetes rate later in life.

The team believes that young people should be active in their lives, so that they don’t need to worry about diabetes later in their lives. This also serves as a wake-up call for those, who aren’t obese, yet doesn’t have an active lifestyle. That won’t’ make them safe at all to having diabetes as they grow older.

“A healthy lifestyle at any age reduces the risk of chronic disease throughout the life cycle,” said Dr. Howard Selinger, chairman of family medicine at Quinnipaic University’s School of Medicine in Hamden, Conn.

Dr. Gerald Bernstein , coordinator of the Friedman Diabetes Program at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City said that the study is very important as it shows that the only way to be sure that you won’t have diabetes as you grow older is being active in your early life. Insulin sensitivity greatly contributes whether a person would have diabetes later on their life.

He added that in the US alone, around 52 percent of the populations are suffering from diabetes or pre-diabetes. If we want to stay away from diabetes then we should be active by the age of 18 or the risk would be high in incurring the disease.

Source: Reuters