Healthy neighborhoods cut diabetes risk

People who live in neighborhoods with safe sidewalks, ample parks, good public transportation and ready access to fresh fruits and vegetables are 38 percent less likely to develop diabetes than others, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
They said unlike a lot of other factors that influence diabetes, creating a healthy neighborhood is one thing policymakers can do to address the epidemic of diabetes, which costs the United States more than $116 billion in medical expenses each year.
An estimated 23.6 million people in the United States and 246 million people globally have diabetes. Most have type 2, the kind linked with a poor diet and lack of exercise.
"Altering our environments so that healthier behaviors and lifestyles can be easily chosen may be one of the key steps in arresting and reversing these epidemics," Amy Auchincloss of Drexel University in Philadelphia, whose study appears in the Archives of Internal Medicine, said in a statement.
Auchincloss studied 2,285 adults age 45 to 84 from three different communities: Baltimore, Maryland; the Bronx neighborhood of New York and Forsyth County, North Carolina, who were initially examined between 2000 and 2002. They took blood sugar levels before the study and at three follow-up exams, and gathered information on physical activity, weight and diet.
They also measured neighborhood resources through a community survey that asked about whether it was easy to get healthy foods, or if it was pleasant or easy to walk in their neighborhood.
They defined neighborhoods as the area within a 20-minute walk or a mile from their homes.