Type 1 Diabetes Lifestyle Prevention

Unusually rapid weight gain in infancy has been associated with a one-and-a-half-fold increase in the risk of developing type 1 diabetes in childhood. Being overweight also increases the need for insulin. Therefore, people with type 1 diabetes should achieve and maintain appropriate body weight.

People with type 1 diabetes who engage in regular exercise require less insulin. However, in the short term, exercise can induce low blood sugar or even occasionally increased blood sugar. Moreover, a preliminary study has shown that long-term physical activity was not associated with control of blood glucose in people with type 1 diabetes. Therefore, people with type 1 diabetes should never begin an intensive exercise program without consulting a healthcare professional.

The American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends that people with diabetes limit their daily alcohol consumption to one drink for women and two drinks for men. Similar to research on healthy people, preliminary studies in adults with diabetes find reduced risk of heart disease with light to moderate drinking. Drinking alcohol with type 1 diabetes can result in hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia, depending on the circumstances, but moderate amounts of alcohol ingested with food does not affect blood glucose levels. People with diabetes who drink two or more drinks per day were reported to have a high risk for eye damage in one preliminary study, but another, larger study found no association between alcohol use and eye damage...