7 steps that can help lower diabetes risk 80 percent

The human body is one beautiful, interconnected organism. It’s easy to forget that in a culture where each body part is treated as a separate entity.

You do this for your heart, and that for your brain…

You see an endocrinologist for your hormones and a dermatologist for your skin…

But your hormones can affect your skin. And your heart can affect your brain. And your hormones can affect your brain. And so on and so on.

The good news is, since your body is interconnected, you can make healthy changes to improve one area of health and find that it also helps with others. A prime example?

The American Heart Association’s Life’s Simple 7.

These seven lifestyle habits for optimum heart health have benefits that go beyond your heart. In fact, a new study shows that following just four of these habits can lower your diabetes risk by 80 percent.

Heart health and diabetes risk go hand in hand

A study from researchers at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center found that healthy adults who follow four or more of the Simple 7 heart health guidelines can lower their risk of diabetes substantially.

The study included 7,758 people who were monitored for diabetes and their adherence to the Simple 7. And those who followed four or more of the Simple 7 guidelines lowered their risk of developing diabetes in the next ten years by 80 percent.

Unfortunately, those with diabetes and prediabetes didn’t have the same success with these guidelines… evidence that it’s much harder to dig yourself out of a diagnosed disease than it is to prevent the disease in the first place.

Related: 12 signs you could have prediabetes

“Healthy people need to work to stay healthy. Follow the guidelines. Don’t proceed to high blood sugar and then worry about stopping diabetes. By that point, people need high-intensity interventions that focus on physical activity and diet to promote weight loss and, possibly, medications to lower the risk of diabetes,” said Dr. Joshua J. Joseph, an endocrinologist and assistant professor at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center.

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Getting started on the Simple 7

So, what are the Simple 7? They’re seven truly simple lifestyle behaviors that can improve your heart health and diabetes risk:

1. Manage Blood Pressure
2. Control Cholesterol
3. Reduce Blood Sugar
4. Get Active
5. Eat Better
6. Lose Weight
7. Stop Smoking

The good news is if you follow numbers four through seven, numbers one through three should fall into place quickly. Once you get active, eat better, lose weight and stop smoking, so many areas of your health will fall into place, you’ll be amazed.

But advice like “get active” and “eat better” is vague. So, if you’re looking for more direction when it comes to diet and exercise, here’s what you need to know…

Eating healthy, whether to prevent heart disease, diabetes or other diseases, requires eating lots of vegetables, fruits, fiber, and healthy proteins. One way to check all these boxes without reinventing the cookbook is to follow a time-tested diet like the Mediterranean, which is proven to have a positive effect on diabetes and heart disease.

As far as exercise goes, shoot for 150 minutes per week. That’s a little more than 20 minutes per day if you include weekends or 30 minutes per day if you take weekends off. It’s a habit that’s short, simple and surprisingly effective at warding off diabetes and heart disease.

Sources:

1. Study finds following heart health guidelines also reduces diabetes risk — MedicalXpress
2. Ideal cardiovascular health, glycaemic status and incident type 2 diabetes mellitus: the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study — Diabetologia
3. My Life Check – Life’s Simple 7 — American Heart Association
4. Move More — American Heart Association