Benefits of Activity Monitoring for Treating Pre-Diabetes

Increasing one’s activity can help prevent progression from pre-diabetes to type 2 diabetes. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends physical activity to produce important benefits: keep your blood glucose, blood pressure, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides on target, lowers your risk for pre-diabetes, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke, strengthens your heart, muscles and bones. The ADA also recommends to track your progress using your smartphone or other methods. This is a great opportunity to use even the simplest pedometer or those built into most smart phones.  

A more sophisticated approach was taken by Partners Healthcare in their Text2Move program. Their premise was that physical activity can help patients with type 2 diabetes better self-manage their condition, improve quality of life and health outcomes, which in turn reduces health care costs.  Text 2 Move is a dynamic messaging program for people with type 2 diabetes, designed to increase physical activity and lower HbA1c levels (the clinical measure for blood sugar control).

This randomized clinical trial combines objective activity data (collected via an activity tracker), a patient's stage of behavior change (measured via personalized text messages) and the practice location to deliver highly targeted, personalized text messages.

Programs like this and others which integrate activity monitoring into Diabetes Prevention Programs are an encouraging trend in preventing progression to a chronic condition through personal connected health.