Daily step count and incident diabetes in community-dwelling 70-year-olds: a prospective cohort study

Abstract Background Older adults with diabetes take fewer steps per day than those without diabetes. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the association of daily step count with incident diabetes in community-dwelling 70-year-olds. Methods This prospective cohort study included N = 3055 community-dwelling 70-year-olds (52% women) who participated in a health examination in Umeå, Sweden during 2012–2017, and who were free from diabetes at baseline. Daily step count was measured for 1 week using Actigraph GT3X+ accelerometers. Cases of diabetes were collected from the Swedish National Patient Register. The dose-response association was evaluated graphically using a flexible parametric model, and hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated using Cox regressions. Results During a mean follow-up of 2.6 years, diabetes was diagnosed in 81 participants. There was an inverse nonlinear dose-response association between daily step count and incident diabetes, with a steep decline in risk of diabetes from a higher daily step count until around 6000 steps/day. From there, the risk decreased at a slower rate until it leveled off at around 8000 steps/day. A threshold of 4500 steps/day was found to best distinguish participants with the lowest risk of diabetes, where those taking ≥ 4500 steps/day, had 59% lower risk of diabetes, compared to those taking fewer steps (HR, 0.41, 95% CI, 0.25–0.66). Adjusting for visceral adipose tissue (VAT) attenuated the association (HR, 0.64, 95% CI, 0.38–1.06), which was marginally altered after further adjusting for sedentary time, education and other cardiometabolic risk factors and diseases (HR, 0.58, 95% CI, 0.32–1.05). Conclusions A higher daily step count is associated with lower risk of incident diabetes in community-dwelling 70-year-olds. The greatest benefits occur at the lower end of the activity range, and much earlier than 10,000 steps/day. With the limitation of being an observational study, these findings suggest that promoting even a modest increase in daily step count may help to reduce the risk of diabetes in older adults. Because VAT appears to partly mediate the association, lifestyle interventions targeting diabetes should apart from promoting physical activity also aim to prevent and reduce central obesity.

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The MIPAM trial – motivational interviewing and physical activity monitoring to enhance the daily level of physical activity among older adults – a randomized controlled trial

European Review of Aging and Physical Activity ◽

10.1186/s11556-021-00269-7 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Rasmus Tolstrup Larsen ◽

Christoffer Bruun Korfitsen ◽

Camilla Keller ◽

Jan Christensen ◽

Henning Boje Andersen ◽

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Keyword(s):

Physical Activity ◽

Older Adults ◽

Motivational Interviewing ◽

Community Dwelling ◽

Step Count ◽

World Health ◽

Controlled Study ◽

Daily Step ◽

Randomized Controlled ◽

Daily Step Count

Abstract Background One in four older adults in Denmark and almost half of the very old above 75 do not meet the World Health Organization’s recommendations for a minimum of physical activity (PA). A cost-efficient and effective way to increase focus on and motivation for daily walking might be to use Physical Activity Monitors (PAMs) in combination with behavioural change intervention. Thus, the objective of this randomized controlled study was to investigate the effect of Motivational Interviewing (MI) as an add-on intervention to a PAM-based intervention measured in community-dwelling older adults. Methods This two-arm parallel group randomized controlled effectiveness trial compared a 12-weeks PAM-based intervention with additional MI (PAM+MI group) with a PAM-based intervention alone (PAM group). The primary outcome, average daily step count, was analysed with a linear regression model, adjusted for sex and baseline daily step count. Following the intention-to-treat principle, multiple imputation based on baseline step count, sex and age was performed. Results In total, 38 participants were randomized to the PAM intervention and 32 to the PAM+MI intervention arm. During the intervention period, PAM+MI participants walked on average 909 more steps per day than PAM participants, however insignificant (95%CI: − 71; 1889) and reported 2.3 points less on the UCLA Loneliness Scale (95%CI: − 4.5; − 1.24). Conclusion The use of MI, in addition to a PAM-based intervention among older adults in PA promoting interventions hold a potential clinically relevant effect on physical activity and should thus be investigated further with adequately powered RCTs. Trial registration This study was pre-registered in the clinicaltrials.gov database with identifier: NCT03906162.

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