Man’s Best Friend for Diabetes Prevention

About 10% of all Americans have type two diabetes. Many more are prediabetic, but it’s still reversable at that point. “A really good, intense lifestyle modification program with coaching, about 7 to 10 percent weight loss, a healthy diet, and a good exercise program, that can reduce the risk of going from prediabetes to diabetes in half,” said Endocrinologist Dr. James Figge.
Dr. Figge has simple advice to help ensure his patients get at least 150 minutes of exercise a week. “One thing I often tell my patients is to go out and adopt a dog from a rescue shelter and start walking the dog, because you'll save the dog's life and the dog will save your life, because it will get you out there exercising.”
It can also help with your mental health. “Walking a dog is actually a really good way of getting exercise, because the dog needs to go out and you bond with the dog. The human-canine bonding is very therapeutic, and the dog will get you walking,” said Dr. Figge.
He practices what he preaches. “I started doing that myself about 12, 15 years ago, and actually, we're putting in about 20 to 24 miles a week with my dog. We do about 2 miles every morning, and then on Saturday, we actually do a 10K, but it took me a while to build up to be able to do that 10K,” he said. “If you work at it consistently, you can really build up your exercise tolerance so that you can put in a lot of miles, and that will really help you keep risk factors down.”
You can learn more about lee health’s diabetes prevention program by searching for it on leehealth.org.
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Lee Health in Fort Myers, FL is the largest network of health care facilities in Southwest Florida and is highly respected for its expertise, innovation and quality of care. For more than 100 years, we’ve been providing our community with personalized preventative health services and primary care to highly specialized care services and robotic assisted surgeries.
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