Eating fruits, exercising offer survival gains in diabetes

For patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), consumption of fruits and engagement in physical activity help cut the risk of death from all cause, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and stroke, as reported in a study.

Researchers followed 20,340 community-dwelling T2D patients aged 21–94 years. They completed standardized questionnaires that collected information on diets and physical activity. The associations of these exposure variables were assessed in relation to mortality using Cox regression models.

A total of 1,362 deaths occurred during 79,844 person-years of follow-up. Fruit consumption showed a protective association with the risk of death. Compared with nonconsumption, fruit intake of >42.9 g/d reduced the risk of all-cause mortality by 24 percent (hazard ratio [HR], 0.76, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.64–0.88), CVD mortality by 31 percent (HR, 0.69, 95 percent CI, 0.51–0.94), and stroke mortality by 43 percent (HR, 0.57, 95 percent CI, 0.36–0.89). There was no such effect observed for heart disease mortality (HR, 0.93, 95 percent CI, 0.56–1.52).

The same pattern of associations was observed for physical activity. The top vs bottom physical activity quartile was inversely associated with all-cause mortality (HR, 0.44, 95 percent CI, 0.37–0.53), CVD mortality (HR, 0.46, 95 percent CI, 0.33–0.64), stroke mortality (HR, 0.46, 95 percent CI, 0.29–0.74), and heart disease mortality (HR, 0.51, 95 percent CI, 0.29–0.88).

At 80 g fruit/day, the risk of all-cause mortality decreased by approximately 24 percent. Moreover, there was a risk reduction observed at a physical activity threshold of 8 metabolic equivalents (MET) h/day, after which the risk of mortality did not decrease.