Overweight women at risk for diabetes can prevent the disease and lower their chance of urinary incontinence (UI) according to researchers.

For the 3-year trial, the researchers looked at the effects of diet and exercise—compared with drug treatment with metformin only or a placebo treatment—on UI risk in 1957 obese women. The researchers found that women in the intensive lifestyle group lost an average of 3.4 kg, compared with1.5 kg in the metformin group and a gain of 0.5 kg in the placebo group. In the 3 groups, the percentages of women who developed diabetes were 14.9%, 23.9%, and 30.9%, respectively. The percentage of women with UI at end of the study was 38.3% in the intervention group, compared with 48.1% in the metformin group and 45.7% in the placebo group. (The findings were reported in Diabetes Care, February 2006.)