Controlling blood glucose levels can help reduce risk of diabetes in at-risk people, new study says.

Bringing down blood glucose levels even for short durations can reduce risk of developing diabetes by more than 50 percent over a period of 10 years, the study said.

The results were based on an ongoing study on diabetes called Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study. The study had some 3,000 participants diagnosed with pre-diabetes. The researchers wanted to know if they can predict diabetes risk in people who return to normal glucose levels at least once during the Diabetes Prevention Program compared to people who remain at high-risk during the entire program.

Experts believe that adopting a healthy diet and regular exercise (30 minutes physical activity 5 times a week) can help reduce risk of diabetes.

"The importance of this analysis is clear. Physicians should seek to restore normal glucose regulation in their patients with pre-diabetes," said Dr. Leigh Perreault, a researcher with the CU School of Medicine and the Colorado School of Public Health.

According to Centers for Disease control and prevention, an estimated 79 million people aged 20 or older in the U.S have pre-diabetes.

According to researchers, intervention programs should focus on bringing down the glucose level in blood in high-risk people. Even a short-duration control of blood glucose can cut the risk of diabetes.

"Interventions that simply maintain pre-diabetes, even where overt diabetes is avoided short-term, are not enough as the long-term risk remains. Strategies and follow-up should focus on achieving normal glucose regulation, by whatever means and however transient, to ensure the greatest reduction in diabetes risk for those with pre-diabetes," Perreault said.

The study was published in the journal The Lancet.

Previous research has shown that early diet control can reduce the risk or control diabetes type-2.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine says that replacing carbohydrates with fat, especially a diet high in monounsaturated fatty acids, is a better idea while trying to control the glucose level in people with type-2 diabetes.