(HealthDay News) — Favorable cardiovascular health (CVH) is important for preventing type 2 diabetes among middle-aged individuals regardless of their genetic predisposition, according to a study published online Sept. 28 in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
Kan Wang, from the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and colleagues calculated a CVH score and a genetic risk score for predisposition for diabetes among 5993 individuals at baseline.
The researchers found that at age 55 years, the remaining lifetime risk for type 2 diabetes was 22.6% for ideal, 28.3% for intermediate, and 32.6% for poor CVH. The lifetime risk for type 2 diabetes was still the lowest for ideal CVH when stratifying by genetic risk score tertiles (lowest: 21.5%; second: 20.8%; highest: 23.5%) compared with intermediate and poor CVH.
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“While genetics do contribute to the probability of developing type 2 diabetes, the findings indicate that maintaining healthy lifestyle habits, and especially having a healthy body weight, can help lower the lifetime risk of the condition,” a coauthor said in a statement.
