What's your New Year Resolution?

New research shows

that cutting down on your tea and coffee at work may not be the best New Year

Resolution you could make.  That’s

one more I can cross off my list before I even make it through to 1st January, then. 

Researchers in Archives

of Internal Medicine looked at studies involving nearly 500,000 people and

found that people who drink three or four cups of coffee or tea a day cut their

risk of developing type 2 diabetes by a fifth or more. The same amount of

decaffeinated coffee had an even bigger effect. 

But what does this

actually tell me in real terms? Dr Victoria King of Diabetes UK, told the BBC: “Without full

information about what other factors may be influencing the type 2 diabetes

risk of the studies’ participants – such as their physical activity levels and

diet – as well as what the active ingredient in tea or coffee appears to be, we

cannot be sure what, if anything, this observed effect is down to.

There are 200,000

people in the South West with diabetes and according to Diabetes UK, there are

another 60,000 people who have diabetes but don’t know it. 

Only last week, the

Diabetes UK roadshow visited nearby Honiton to raise awareness of Type 2 and to

encourage people to measure their waists to see if they might be at risk. Having

a large waist means people are 12 times more likely to develop the condition.

The South West

regional manager for Diabetes UK, Jan Tyrrell, who leaves her position this

month, said: “We referred several people who were moderate to high risk to seek

further assistance from their GP.”

Judging by the number of mince pies I've been

stock piling in the cupboard, I think I'd better stick to this

resolution and just assume that as well as it being good for me, it

might even help me to avoid getting Type 2 Diabetes. Bonus!

I did look to see if there is a Type 2 Diabetes support group in Exmouth but none seems to exist. Do you know of any? Is Exmouth going to have one of these roadshow visits, so we can all nip down and get the tape measure out?