Weight Loss and Fitness May Enhance Mobility in Diabetes

One of the more embarrassing titles of the year.

Type 2 diabetes is fat person diabetes.

What about getting fitter and lighter and improved mobility is not self-evident?

An intensive lifestyle intervention to lower weight and improve fitness appeared to improve mobility among overweight patients with type 2 diabetes, according to the findings of a multicenter, randomized, controlled trial.

W. Jack Rejeski, PhD, from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and colleagues published their findings in the March 29 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The authors note the importance of maintaining mobility among patients with type 2 diabetes, particularly as they age: "An insidious consequence of aging in persons with type 2 diabetes is physical disability, particularly the loss of mobility," the authors write. "Reduced mobility puts patients at risk for loss of independence, leads to muscle loss (which compromises glucose storage and clearance), and compromises the quality of life."

Dumb, friggin' morons.