WASHINGTON — Keeping focused on the present, rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, might help you to avoid diabetes, a new study finds.
Mindfulness can be measured. There’s a Mindfulness Awareness Attention Scale measuring how aware you are of what you’re experiencing right now.
And the more mindful you are, the more likely you are to have healthier blood sugar levels, according to a Brown University study involving 399 participants.
Researchers say the study findings show an association and do not prove a cause, but they have ideas about what might be going on: Perhaps people who are more mindful have better control over their actions, and are better able to motivate themselves to exercise and to resist a high-fat, high-sugar diet.
The study adjusted for a comprehensive list of physical and demographic factors, but found people with high levels of mindfulness were about 20 percent less likely to have type-2 diabetes.
Researchers caution, however, that the number of study participants may have been too small “to allow for definitive findings.”
