Exercise AIDS Blood Sugar Levels
By Nanci Hellmich
Good news for diabetics: Both aerobic exercise and strength training improve blood sugar levels. And lots of both provides the best results, a new study shows.
About 20.8 million people in the USA have diabetes. Type 2 diabetes — the most common kind — is associated with obesity, lack of exercise and genetics.
Diabetes is caused by the body’s failure to produce enough insulin or to use it effectively to reduce blood sugar levels. Over time, high sugar levels damage large and small blood vessels, leading to heart disease, stroke, nerve damage, amputations, blindness and kidney disease.
To test the impact of different types of exercise on blood sugar control, researchers in Calgary and Ottawa, Canada, recruited 251 sedentary diabetics, ages 39 to 70.
Participants were assigned to one of four groups: no exercise; 45 minutes of aerobic exercise such as walking or indoor biking three times a week; strength (resistance or weight) training for 45 minutes three times a week; aerobics and strength training for 45 minutes each three times a week.
They were given memberships to an exercise facility and asked to follow their plans for 22 weeks. They used treadmills and indoor exercise bikes and wore pedometers to track their activity.
At three and six months, participants were given a test that measures hemoglobin A1c, an estimate of the average blood sugar level over the past three months. It’s expressed in percentages.
A 1 percentage point decrease in this score (for example, dropping from a 7.5% to a 6.5%) is associated with a 15% to 20% decrease in the risk of heart attacks or strokes and a 25% to 40% decrease in risk of diabetes-related eye or kidney disease.
The American Diabetes Association says people with diabetes should aim for 7% or less.
The findings in today’s Annals of Internal Medicine show:
*The no-exercise group had no change in A1c.
*The aerobic exercise group had an average decrease of 0.51% in A1c compared with the no-exercise group.
*The strength training group had an average decrease of 0.38%.
*Participants who did both types of exercise had a 0.97% drop.
*The average A1c for the exercise groups went from above 7% to at or below 7%; the other group stayed above 7%.
“For people with diabetes, this is spectacular news,” says Larry Deeb, past president of the American Diabetes Association. “It shows how important both kinds of exercise are. Take your pick, and you’ll lower A1c. Exercise can lower blood sugar level almost as much as any single pill you can take.” (c) Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.