A new study shows that people with type 2 diabetes lower their glucose levels more when they do both aerobic and weight training exercises than when they do neither or just one of these types. The research was published in a recent edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Until this study was published, it was unclear what the best exercise routine was for diabetics. The study holds lessons for diabetics and non-diabetics alike.
Timothy Church MD led the nine-month study on 262 sedentary male and female patients with type 2 diabetes. He measured glycated hemoglobin, an accepted measure of how well diabetics have controlled their blood sugar over the past few months, with lower being better. His study has become known as the "Hart-D trial.
" Aerobic exercise included walking on a treadmill for about 150 minutes per week at a moderate pace. Resistance training included working out three days per week with upper body, leg, abdomen, and back exercises. The combination training program included only two days of resistance training per week to keep the total exercise time consistent in all three groups. Therefore, each of the three groups spent about total 140 minutes in exercises each week.
The authors of the study concluded that, although both aerobic and resistance training provide benefits of themselves, only the combination of the two seemed to reduced levels of glycated hemoglobin. In addition, fewer of the people in the combination exercise group needed to increase the amount of medications they required to control their disease. All three of the groups reduced their waists by 1.5 to 2.8 centimeters. Fat mass was reduced by 3 pounds in the resistance training group and 3.7 pounds in the combination training group. But only participants in the combination group were significantly more likely than those in the control group to get to the point where they could decrease hypoglycemic medications or reduce glycated hemoglobin levels.
"We really thought that the walking group and the combination group would be similar, but the combination group was the only group that had significant improvement. They reduced their [glycated hemoglobin] levels, while also reducing the amount of diabetes medications," said Dr. Church, who is director of preventive medicine research at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University System in Baton Rouge.
With obesity and the onset on type 2 diabetes rampant in the United States, the Church study holds lessens for everyone who is concerned with their health. Experts' advice for avoiding diabetes tends to mirror that for treating it. This can be summarized as "lose weight, avoid simple carbohydrates, such as sugar and white bread, and exercise regularly." Now this exercise can be defined as doing both aerobic exercises, as on a treadmill, and weight resistance exercises.
Church's study was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Its results were published in the November 24, 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. See "Effects of Aerobic and Resistance Training on Hemoglobin A1c Levels in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes - A Randomized Controlled Trial" Church, Blair, et al.,JAMA. 2010;304(20):2253-2262. doi:10.1001/jama.2010.1710
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