Exercise may counteract inherited risk for diabetes

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Getting regular exercise can help fend off diabetes, even in people with a genetic propensity for the disease, a new study finds.

The study included more than 59,000 people who wore activity trackers on their wrists for a week. All were part of the UK Biobank, a large database of genetic, lifestyle, and health information from more than a half-million people in the United Kingdom.

After a median follow-up of nearly seven years, researchers found that people who did more than an hour of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity daily had a 74% lower risk of developing diabetes compared with people who did less than five minutes of physical activity per day.

That finding was true even among people at high genetic risk for diabetes, who are 2.4 times as likely to get diabetes than people at low genetic risk. The study was published online June 5, 2023, by the British Journal of Sports Medicine.