5 min run on treadmill reduces BG dramatically

[AndyMc]

I've been doing some experimenting with the effect on BG of a short sharp(ish) bit of exercise. Here are the two results so far:

1. BG of 11 three hours after high-carb lunch. 5 min jog on treadmill (5 mph). BG down to 7.5 five minutes after run.
2. BG of 7.5 one hour after low-carb dinner. 5 min jog on treadmill (5 mph). BG down to 5.2 fifteen minutes after run.

(the two tests were on different days)

I was very surprised that that such a modest amount of exercise had such an immediate and dramatic effect on BG.

 

[Lamont D]

You don't need to do that level of sudden exercise to get your BSLs down, a brisk walk or a steady programme will reduce it better. As a diabetic sudden plunges in BSLs is not recommended unless you are taking steps to address it. A natural return to your level can be achieved by doing nothing after a few hours.
So you don't have to sprint after every meal!

 

[AndyMc]

Well 5mph is a modest jog, closer to a brisk walk than a sprint. I'm totally unfit (just bought the treadmill to try to get some exercise), and 5 mins at 5mph doesn't even make me breathe heavily, so it's obviously not too strenuous.

But anyway I'm not suggesting this is a good way to manage blood sugar, just observing that modest exercise seems to have a very immediate and significant impact on my BG, which is not something I'd expected.

Does anyone have results from any similar experiments? I'm wondering if the effect is so significant because I'm so unfit, and will gradually reduce as I get a bit fitter.

 

[DeejayR]

Did you test to see if your BG stayed down?
Have you tried exercise with a low BG starting point to see if you then get a liver dump to put your BG back up?
Many people confirm that modest exercise such as yours quickly reduces levels (eg walking up and down stairs a few times).
I think it's all very interesting and if it means progress for you, all the better.
But there are so many variables it's difficult to produce a concensus.

 

[AndyMc]

> Did you test to see if your BG stayed down?

Test 1 it did, but I've just re-tested one hour after the test 2 run (so approx 2 hours after eating) and it's gone back up to 6.6 (from 5.2 after the run).

I think that makes some sense, in that with the first test I did the run long after the meal, so perhaps all of the sugar was already processed and in the blood, whereas the second test it was sooner after eating, so perhaps the sugar hadn't reached its peak.


> Have you tried exercise with a low BG starting point to see if you then get a liver dump to put your BG back up?

No but I definitely plan to test that, probably by exercising first thing in the morning.

 

[Jackthehat]

this just on a meter though, ive seen mine down to 5.6 after a 2 hour workout (bikes/rowing/traedmill) but its the long term BS that counts surely?

blood changes on a 13 week cycle, on dec 6th i can have the next clinic blood test, if im a stone lighter and having cut out 99% of the bread, and tried to avoid carbs id hope to beat my last test of 9

 

[Ian DP]

Does anyone have results from any similar experiments? I'm wondering if the effect is so significant because I'm so unfit, and will gradually reduce as I get a bit fitter.

Similar results on a bike excerciser. When I bought it 8 months ago and did 5 mins on the hardest setting my bg levels dropped quite significantly. 5 mins then was as much as my legs could do, not out of breath just did not have the strength to do more...... Now, 5 mins has no effect at all, I am now doing 1hr (watching tv) to see similar bg levels dropping.....and I am so much fitter because of it.

 

[RodBallantyne]

I am always surprised at the fact that people are surprised that exercise affects BSL. This has been known about for years. But while short term benefits have been long observed the most important thing has been the research results which have shown the long term benefit of short bursts of high intensity exercise. This was brought to my attention by the BBC Horizon programme presented by Dr Michael Moseley, and has spawned innumerable articles and papers since then. Just type in High Intensity Intermittent Training ( or Exercise) into any search engine and you will see lots of links. In short the research at Nottingham University, Loughborough University, and Birmingham University all showed that HIIT improved Insulin Sensitivity and had benefits in weight reduction and many biochemical improvements, which were long lasting. The critical thing for most people is that the HIIT only takes about 10 minutes each time and only needs to be done 3 times a week, so nobody can say it is too time consuming! The only snag is that the level of effort in each High Intensity bit is, as the name suggests, High! I know that for many people this is scary, but you can safely exercise for short periods with a heart rate of 90% of your max rate without any adverse consequences! In that context you should be aware that the old scale of 220 - age = MHR is not accurate and there are many other more accurate ones available and that these scales are only able to give an average, and that the population has a distribution about that average of up to +/- 20 so if your MHR comes out at say 160 remember that you could be anywhere within a range of 140 to 180, so it is only by trial and error that you will find the level where you are approaching your own true MHR!

 

[phoenix]

Fourteen minutes of exercise of varied types , walking, jogging, dancing etc in the Big Blue Test for World Diabetes day 2011 reduced the glucose levels of 89% of the participants. With an average fall of 20%
Around 10% of the participants had a rise in levels .
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/36/2/e21.full
In that 14 mins mine went from 6.9 to 4.2 mmol (I did 5.5 laps of 400m so 2.2 km, works out at about 5.8mph). I take insulin so the drop is obviously influenced by that but it was a couple of hours after the last meal/bolus

 

[JohnD54]

Good evening, I have just bought a recumbent exercise bike, and certainly short burst of riding lowers BG reading for me.

I don't know if the effect is permanent or just at that point in time.

Once I get used to the bike I might well try to test for length of time.

 

[peacetrain]

> Did you test to see if your BG stayed down?

Test 1 it did, but I've just re-tested one hour after the test 2 run (so approx 2 hours after eating) and it's gone back up to 6.6 (from 5.2 after the run).

I think that makes some sense, in that with the first test I did the run long after the meal, so perhaps all of the sugar was already processed and in the blood, whereas the second test it was sooner after eating, so perhaps the sugar hadn't reached its peak.


> Have you tried exercise with a low BG starting point to see if you then get a liver dump to put your BG back up?

No but I definitely plan to test that, probably by exercising first thing in the morning.

I was about to ask the same question. A few weeks ago I ate ore carbs than I wanted so I did a quick 5 minute burst on my stepper with bungees. It reduced my bg level nicely but it went back up again over the next few hours. I had eaten a roti. Never succumbed since diagnosis but I had decided to test myself. An hour after eating I was low 6s. 5 min spurt brought it down to mid 4s but a couple of hours later I was back in 6s. I don't usually go so high but I partly expected it because of my little experiment. I know others do short spurts to bring bg down so I tried it. Result was, as I've already said, an initial lowering but obviously the roti was still going to work.

 

[bonnynemia]

Hi Everybody:

I have been using daily exercise as my only way of controlling my type 2 diabetes for 23 years and 6 months. Since most of my foods are carbohydrates (yes, carbohydrates are notorious for creating high fasting and after-meal blood sugar readings but they have not harmed me yet), I don't consider them as part of my diabetes control method.

Or maybe I should consider my foods as part of my diabetes control method because although they have been giving me high blood sugar readings 4x/day, the fact that they are heart-healthy, natural, fresh (raw or cooked), unprocessed, and whole, the high readings I have been getting are short-lived.

I run the stairs 4x/day (immediately before each of my 3 full meals and before bedtime). I test only 100x/year to find out if my daily exercise is still as effective as I expect it to be: one test before I exercise in the morning (fasting) and the 2nd test immediately after my fourth exercise. The readings I have been getting were high 120 mg/dl in the morning and high 80 mg/dl at night.

Including warm-up and cool-down, my daily exercise time is close to 2 hours.

I have no diabetes complications yet. My past A1c's were between 5.2% and 6.3%, the one I got on October 1, 2014, was 6%.

I have never tried any anti-diabetes pills and/or insulin.

I have never had any hypoglycemia episode even when I overexercised or missed one or two meals.

Bonny Damocles
Male, 79 years old
5'7", 140 lbs.
Not taking any pharma drug because I am scared of their bad side effects