Has anyone ever controlled Pre or Type2 with exercise alone?

I don't take medication, and it lead a very active lifestyle; swimming every day, sailing, walking and riding my bike, but it is my personal belief that whilst being active certainly helps, it does not have quite the same impact as an appropriately controlled diet.

Whilst I'm not advocating you or anyone else adopts the Newcastle Diet, there is a massive amount of interesting information in the following link, and it's sub pages. This talks about body fat thresholds, diet and other factors. It is also written in a very non-medical way. I hope you can get something from it. http://www.ncl.ac.uk/magres/research/diabetes/reversal.htm

What are you doing now to manage your pre-diabetes, in an effort to prevent progression?

I think diet is much more influential on controlling BGs than exercise. Why commit to intensive workouts to try and achieve what carb restriction will do anyway? There is a place for exercise of course, and I use it to burn off some of my glucose peaks after eating (say 10 minutes on the rower an hour later) but I wouldn't contemplate doing it all with exercise even if it were possible.

Another thing is the impact on the liver and kidneys. With more intensive bouts of exercise, especially if not linked to meals, the liver will be more likely to dump more glucose into the system following the exercise as it prepares the body for more activity. I can also see the risk of much bigger fluctuations in BG that way, which according to Jenny Ruhl is more damaging to the kidneys than keeping BGs on a much an even keel as possible - and for me I can only do that with diet plus appropriate focussed exercise.

Exercise can be very effective to reduce insulin resistance. It's also useful as an addition to dieting for weight loss but less effective on it's own.
A Chinese study showed slightly fewer people developed diabetes in a group with impaired glucose tolerance that were set to do exercise, than those who did both diet and exercise .
Diet alone had the least effect.

'The Da Qing Study examined the effect of a 6-year diet and exercise intervention in Chinese subjects with IGT and a mean age of 45.
The diet intervention alone was associated with a 31% reduction in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes during a 6-year follow-up period.'
the exercise intervention alone showed a 46% reduction in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
the combined diet and exercise group had a 42% reduction


They were advised to increase their leisure time activities to include at least 1 unit of exercise a day as in the table , (I think travelling by bus must be more active in China!) If they were under 50 and had no arthritis or heart disease they were encouraged to increase to two units. They received regular advise on how to increase their exercise to these levels



http://sdps.ctrl.ucla.edu/nutrigen/pages/publicview/Epi 258 Fall 2010/Epi 258/Pan 8.pdf

If you eat right and a bit of exercise and prediabetic. You have a 60-70% chance of never becoming diabetic

trueblue said:

Cheers guys,,well all I can do is keep doing what I am doing then and hope for the best, Exercise as much as I can ,,,eat a balanced healthy diet and hope that helps. I cant say I will never eat another carb because that just wont happen,, but i have lost about 2-3 stone , I swim 3-4 mornings a week go to gym no fewer than 4 nights a week and run about 8-12 miles a week (2x runs not counting the treadmill) ,I dont eat sweets, cut back on carbs to an extent such as no bread and if I have pasta or rice its brown,,no sugary drinks and I ram down as much protein as possible,if that aint enough then ****** it.

For me sanguine,, as I enjoy the exercise lifestyle that would be easier for me than counting every carb and watching everything I eat and drink everyday.
My dad developed type 2 in his 50's,, but he was way overweight, drank vodka every night, smoked (and inhaled) x20-30 cigars a day, ate whatever, and never walked the length of himself as far as exercise went,,,,,he's more or less the opposite to me so If I still get it later on then it must just be in the genes.

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Hi there,

Great you're doing plenty of exercise, and congratulations on the weight loss!

Just so that you know, for an average person, an hour's cycle at a moderate intensity pace would be fuelled with between say 50 - 60 grams of carb. So if you wanted a completely guilt free plate of pasta you would need to be cycling/running or swimming for a couple of hours.
Basically when you exercise - and more so when you exercise at a pretty high intensity, your major muscle groups use up on-board glycogen (glucose) stores. Once these start to run low, then your liver helps by releasing glucose into the bloodstream for working muscles to draw on.
Once you finish your exercise, these stores need to be re-stocked and it is at this point that you have the potential to in effect eat carbs 'for free' without seeing the usual blood glucose rise. This is a 30min or so window, before your body resorts to re-stocking through other means within the body.

Exercise at any time of the day is always great. If you do fancy a blowout however, try to work it into that thirty minute or so window after exercise, or even twenty or so minutes after a meal (though you may not feel quite so inclined to do a great deal after eating)

Keep up the great work!

For more info around exercise and diabetes, take a look at http://www.teambloodglucose.com/TeamBG/Kit_bag_Good_Fitness.html