Multi-component Lifestyle Interventions for Diabetes and Associated Non-communicable Diseases: Considerations for Future Research.
Diabetes prevalence is at an alarming level. Despite several global calls for action to reverse such a trend, the number of people with diabetes and associated lifestyle diseases continues to rise leading to significant health burdens, morbidity and premature mortality. Such challenge makes it crucial to adopt immediate preventative policies which embed effective lifestyle diabetes interventions, especially those integrating multi-components interventions.
Adopting a multi-component approach which encompasses changing behavioral and physical aspects is likely to be more effective than a single component diabetes prevention program.
Lessons from large lifestyle interventions combining a variety of physical activity patterns with different healthy dietary regimes have unequivocal evidence about their joint long-term effectiveness compared with adopting a single component whether exercise, diet or medication alone.
In such, interventions should always adopt exercise and nutrition as essential components of a lifestyle intervention strategy. Even at the screening phase, assessing a combined physical activity, cardiorespiratory fitness, nutritional intake alongside diabetes and associated cardiometabolic risk factors, is likely to encourage healthy behavior change in high-risk individuals.10,11 Therefore, adopting multi-component prevention strategy, both at baseline assessment and throughout
the intervention not only augments their benefits but prevents potential hazards.
The scientific knowledge about the behavioral, lifestyle and biological components is continuously evolving, which enables better targeting of several modifiable disease risk factors for diabetes and associated diseases. This also requires integrating exercise science, nutrition and behavior approaches to personalize future lifestyle interventions.
Obes Res Open J.2019; 6(1): e5-e6. doi: 10.17140/OROJ-6-e015
