Exercise programme recommended for type 2 diabetes

A new study has found that people suffering from type 2 diabetes can help their condition by lowering their blood sugar and body fat through regular exercise involving aerobics and weight lifting . Although these activities are already undertaken by many people with the condition, this study found evidence that a combined programme of both aerobics and weight lifting may provide the most benefit, as opposed to just a single activity.
The research recommended that people do around 100 minutes of higher-intensity aerobics a week, followed by one to two days of resistance training for 15 to 20 minutes a day. Timothy Church, director of preventive medicine research at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana State University, who led the research, commented “We can now look at individuals with diabetes right in the face and tell them, ‘This is the best exercise prescription for you.”
The study involved 262 inactive type 2 diabetics, split into four groups, 73 who undertook resistance training three days a week, 72 who did aerobic exercise, 76 that combined the two, and 41 in a non-exercise comparison group.
The scientists monitored each group for nine months, and found that participants who did the combination training lowered their blood level of the glucose marker HbA1c to 7.3 per cent from 7.7 per cent, on average.
Dr. Church said “Diabetes is the failure to control the amount of sugar in your blood, and the biggest user of blood sugar is skeletal muscle . The healthier your skeletal muscle, the more blood sugar it’s chewing up and taking out of the blood.”