Making lasting changes to how you eat and move can help stop prediabetes from turning into full-blown diabetes—but in real life, most people struggle to stick with these changes, so they don’t work as well as they do in fancy research studies.

Losing weight with diet and exercise doesn’t always help the heart in people with type 2 diabetes—sometimes it helps a lot, sometimes it doesn’t help at all, and sometimes it might even make things worse.

The best way to treat obesity is by eating better and moving more, but most people can’t stick with these changes for long, so they don’t work well over time.

For some people with type 2 diabetes who are overweight, losing weight through diet and exercise can lower their chance of having a heart attack or stroke—but for others, it might actually increase that risk.

Doctors and nurses in regular clinics aren’t getting enough help or training from diabetes researchers to use proven lifestyle tips—like better eating and exercise—to stop people from getting type 2 diabetes.

Doctors and health programs try to help people avoid type 2 diabetes by changing their habits, but we don’t fully understand how exactly those habit-changing tricks—like setting goals or building confidence—actually work to make people stick to healthier choices.