Low physical activity in patients with type 2 diabetes: the role of obesity.

Aims: Few studies have described ambulatory activity in free-living individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) using motion sensors, and none included a control group. For this reason, our study compared the physical-activity levels of outpatients with T2DM with subjects without diabetes, and examined the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and physical-activity parameters.

Methods: Physical-activity levels in 70 outpatients with T2DM and 30 age-, gender- and employment-matched individuals without diabetes were measured using the SenseWear Armband™, a monitoring device validated against doubly labelled water, to assess total energy expenditure.