With initial studies and theories suggesting diabetes patients to take extra care of their health, researchers have recently started urging the Type 2 diabetes patients to regularly follow weight loss programs and other physical fitness routines enabling them to be lessening the risks of losing mobility and their activeness.

The findings have come from the `Look Ahead' trial (Action for Health in Diabetes)', which was conducted over a period of four years. The results of the trial have been concluded only after studying approx 5,145 participants and their lifestyles, from which the researchers concluded that participating in weight loss and physical fitness programs are healthier for overweight or obese patients suffering from type 2 diabetes as it almost halves their risk of losing mobility.

Moreover, intentional weight loss regime also lessens the risks of developing any cardiovascular disease in the obese Type 2 diabetic patients.

To thoroughly study the effects of physical fitness in the diabetic patients, the researchers divided the participants into two groups, one, intensive lifestyle intervention group and other was diabetes support and education group.

The former group was made to attend meetings in which they studied maintaining weight loss through caloric intake cut, whereas the latter one was made to attend three meetings each year, which taught them generally regarding diet charts, activities, and social support.

Researchers noticed participant's mobility and disability to perform any activity and found after four years of following the similar pattern that ILI group showed 48% lesser disability in their mobility-related activities as compared to the other group.

"These findings add support to making lifestyle changes that improve health and reduce disability in people with type 2 diabetes, changes that already have been shown to prevent the disease and provide a good return on investment", Griffin P. Rodgers, the study leader from NIH's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), said.