Intervention with physical activity promotion in primary prevention of diabetes: Meta-analysis

Abstract

Introduction: Studies of interventions with physical activity (PA) and nutritional counseling to individuals at risk of developing diabetes mellitus (DM) have been prepared, but the synthesis of such studies is still limited. Objective: To collect and calculate the strength of evidence from the past decade findings on the promotion of PA and prevention of DM, based on well-designed intervention studies with high methodological quality to adults at risk of developing diabetes. Methods: A meta-analysis was conducted considering publications from 2001 to September 2014. To the references search, the following descriptors were used: “diabetes mellitus”, “intervention”, “physical activity”, “physical exercise”, organized properly and in different combinations. Results: We found decrease of 2.13 mmol/L (95% CI = 1.62 to 2.64; p <0.0001) in blood glucose levels in monitored subjects. Conclusion: Interventions with PA exerted positive effects in the prevention or delay of DM in people at risk of developing this disease.