Study of Impact of Lifestyle Modification on Diabetes and Prediabetes in an Urban Population

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus has emerged as a prevalent noncommunicable disease worldwide. It ranks among the top causes of mortality in high-income countries and has reached epidemic proportions in newly developing nations.1 Continuous medical care and monitoring is required in Diabetes mellitus along with multi-factorial risk reduction strategies along associated with glycemic control. Due to population aging, growth, urbanization, a lack of physical exercise, and a high incidence of obesity, there are more persons with DM. Lifestyle factors include eating patterns, exercise routines, alcohol consumption, and smoking. An improvement in these parameters would lead to better adherence to hypoglycemic medications. An epidemiological study on diabetes and prediabetes in an urban area with reference to lifestyle modification. An interventional community-based study was conducted in an urban setup. Personal interviews using a semi-structured, pretested questionnaire were the main technique of data gathering. Detailed information has been taken on the demographic and socio-economic characteristics at both the individual and household levels. All responders provided their willingly given consent. Every second household was visited by systematic random sampling procedure to select 400 respondents. Finally, analysis was carried out on 346 respondents. All respondents were questioned using structured a pretested, questionnaire after taking informed consent. Significant difference was observed with positive family history of diabetes, obesity, physical activities in male, high calorie intake, stress, chewable tobacco and blood pressure level with diabetes and pre-diabetes. Compared to responders with normal level of blood glucose, pre diabetics and diabetics individual showed more positive family histories. Compared to responders with normal blood glucose levels, pre-diabetics and diabetics were more likely to be overweight. With regard to personal habits of the respondents, smoking was associated with more than 1-fold increase risk of obtaining serum glucose level >110 mg/dl as compared to non-smokers.The current research was an attempt to examine the effect of intervention with reference to life style modification. From the study, it is evident that overall awareness about diabetes has been found low and no awareness has been found about pre-diabetes. The present study also demonstrated that education is the fundamental tool to make the population aware of their health issues. Awareness about pre-diabetes and diabetes, which can make them beneficial for community and nation and so, they can play an innovative role for prevention of diabetes.