NEW DELHI: Adopting a healthier lifestyle is more effective than using the anti-diabetes drug metformin, with the benefits persisting over 20 years later, according to a study.
The US Diabetes Prevention Program, launched in 1996, enrolled 3,234 patients with prediabetes from 30 institutions across 22 states.
The study aimed to compare the benefits of metformin and a lifestyle modification that included exercise and a healthy diet.
Researchers from The University of New Mexico, US, found that making lifestyle changes lowered the development of diabetes by 24 per cent, while the anti-diabetes drug lowered it by 17 per cent.
The findings are published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology journal.
The team noted that differences between the two approaches -- taking metformin and adopting a healthy lifestyle -- were seen in the first few years since the study's start and were durable.
After the first three years, lifestyle interventions, such as weight loss and increased physical activity, led to a 58 per cent reduction in the onset of type 2 diabetes, compared to a 31 per cent reduction with metformin.
"The data suggests that those people who didn't get diabetes also didn't get diabetes after 22 years," author Vallabh Raj Shah, professor emeritus at The University of New Mexico's School of Medicine, said.
Participants in the lifestyle modification group experienced an additional 3.5 years without diabetes, while those in the metformin group gained an extra 2.5 years.
"Within three years (since the study started), they had to stop the study because lifestyle was better than metformin. That means lifestyle, which everybody is banking on, is more effective -- that is the news," Shah added.
The authors wrote, "During follow-up, compared with placebo, diabetes incidence rate was reduced in the (intensive lifestyle intervention) group (by 24 per cent), and in the original metformin group (by 17 per cent), with corresponding increases in median diabetes-free survival of 3.5 years and 2.5 years.