[H+T--Friends] Article: Link Between Lack of Walkability and Diabetes

A new article on this link may be of interest to you and your networks: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2012/09/alarmingly-strong-link -between-diabetes-and-walkability/3326/ "Researchers at St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences examined data from more than one million residents of Toronto and concluded that people who lived in less walkable neighborhoods were significantly more likely over time to develop diabetes. The effect was particularly strong for immigrants to the city, many of whom live with a high-risk combination of genetic predisposition to diabetes, poverty and poor walkability. In the most startling finding, the study found that a new immigrant in a less walkable neighborhood was more than 50 percent more likely to develop diabetes than a long-term resident of Toronto living in one of the most walkable areas, regardless of neighborhood income. The study looked at just about everyone in Toronto aged 30-64 - the population experiencing the most rapid rise of diabetes incidence - and singled out those who did not have diabetes as of March 31, 2005. The study followed these people over the next five years: in all, 1,239,262 of them, including 214,882 who appeared to be recent immigrants based on registration in the province's healthcare plan. By March of 2010, 58,544 of these people had developed diabetes. And the walkability of the communities in which they lived turned out to be closely linked to that outcome (given the complex factors that affect health, the researchers acknowledge that they can't definitively say this relationship is directly causal)." (shorter URL: http://goo.gl/FgYwW) (study URL: http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/early/2012/08/24/dc12-0777.abst ract)