Research
Mixed
A healthy lifestyle can compensate for suboptimal metabolic control to provide longevity benefits in type 2 diabetes.
Even if your blood sugar or other metabolic numbers aren't perfect, maintaining a healthy lifestyle (not smoking, regular exercise, healthy diet) can still add 1.5-3.4 years to your life compared to someone who has perfect numbers but an unhealthy lifestyle.
GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
individuals with T2D who failed to achieve optimal metabolic control but maintained a healthy lifestyle had a longer life expectancy compared with those who achieved optimal metabolic control but had an unhealthy lifestyle across all cohorts, with life expectancy gains ranging from 1.5 to 3.4 years depending on sex and cohort.
Why this rating
Large-scale prospective cohort studies across three countries.
Source
Risk factor control in relation to mortality and life expectancy among people with type 2 diabetes: results from 3 nationwide cohort studies
Zixin Qiu et al. · Military Medical Research · 2025
DOI 10.1186/s40779-025-00674-4
cohort · n=137996Cited 1×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
Related findings · Mixed
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