News flash! The best way to avoid diabetes is to avoid things that cause diabetes!

The following seems so obvious to me, but it's health and fitness news, so I guess I should report on it. An ongoing government-sponsored study has determined that proper diet and exercise are far better at warding off type II diabetes than drugs.

From WebMD:

Roughly a third of the participants were initially asked to eat a low-fat diet and engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate activity a minimum of five times a week, with the goal of losing 7% of their body weight within a year.

Another third were put on the diabetes drug metformin; the remaining patients initially received no intervention.

Three years into the trial, Knowler and colleagues reported that diabetes incidence was reduced by a whopping 58% in the lifestyle intervention group and 31% in the metformin group, compared to people who received no intervention.

So, basically, you treat your body how it was designed to be treated and it will respond positively. To me, this is like doing a study that explores how people wearing bullet-proof vests respond to being shot, as opposed to people who don't get shot at all.

(If that metaphor confuses you, here's a guide. Metformin = bullet-proof vest. No vest = eating right and exercising. Getting shot = eating badly and not exercising.)

Yeah, okay, it's a little confusing, but it works. I welcome you to try to come up with something better.

photo from Wikipedia.