Eating fruits, exercising curb risk of adverse events in type 2 diabetes patients

In patients with type 2 diabetes, consuming fruits and engaging in physical activity can reduce the risk of all-cause, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and stroke mortality, a study reports.

Researchers followed 20,340 community-dwelling type 2 diabetic patients aged 21–94 years. They collected information on diets and physical activity using standardized questionnaires, as well as assessed all-cause and CVD mortality.

A total of 1,362 deaths occurred over 79,844 person-years. In multivariable Cox regression models, fruit consumption of >42.9 g/d was inversely associated with all-cause mortality (hazard ratio [HR], 0.76, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.64–0.88), CVD mortality (HR, 0.69, 95 percent CI, 0.51–0.94), and stroke mortality (HR, 0.57, 95 percent CI, 0.36–0.89) compared with nonconsumption. However, there was no association observed for heart disease mortality (HR, 0.93, 95 percent CI, 0.56–1.52).

Meanwhile, the top vs bottom quartiles of physical activity were all associated with lower risks of 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).

In the presence of both lower fruit consumption and lower physical activity levels, the mortality risk was greater.

There was a nonlinear threshold of 80 g fruit/day observed. At this cutoff, all-cause mortality risk decreased by approximately 24 percent. A physical activity threshold of eight metabolic equivalents (MET) h/day was also noted, after which the risk of mortality showed no further reduction.