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Volume 3, Issue 5
Walk to work to prevent diabetes
Widespread weight loss could significantly impact diabetes mortality rates
Diabetes shortens life-span by eight years
30 minutes of daily exercise can help prevent diabetes
Aerobic exercise and strength training are powerful medicine for Type II diabetics
Walk to work to prevent diabetes
Past research has shown that regular moderate to vigorous exercise helps reduce one's risk for diabetes. However, up until recently it has been unclear whether or not light exercise, such as a leisurely walk, could have a similar impact. Researchers in Japan recently set out to address this very issue and their results suggest that a long walk to work can help thwart diabetes.
Researcher studied a group of 8,600 healthy middle-aged men who worked for the same large employer. They found that the men whose walk to work was more than 21 minutes were 25 percent less likely to develop diabetes than those whose walk was 10 minutes or less.
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Widespread weight loss could significantly impact diabetes mortality rates
A severe economic crisis in Cuba, from 1989 through 2000, resulted in a variety of negative health issues for Cuban citizens. Researchers have studied the impact of this crisis and an interesting positive trend emerged as a result of decreased caloric intake and increased physical activity due to lack of public transportation: mortality rates due to chronic disease decreased. Deaths from diabetes rates fell by 51 percent, heart disease by 35 percent, and stroke by 20 percent.
While this is an extreme incidence, scientists note that there is a lesson to be learned. Less dramatic changes in diet and physical activity that are the result of a nationwide initiative as opposed to a crisis could have a significant impact on rates of diabetes, heart disease and stroke.
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Diabetes shortens life-span by eight years
A diagnosis of diabetes brings the potential of a wide variety of negative health issues that affect one's quality of life, however new research shows that it also increases the risk for heart disease and cuts an average of eight years off one's life.
In a study based on findings from the ongoing Framingham Heart Study, researchers looked at data from a group of 5,200 men and women. The results indicated that participants with diabetes were twice as likely to develop heart disease than those without. In addition, female diabetics who already developed heart disease were more than twice as likely to die as compared to non-diabetic women and men with diabetes and heart disease were 1.7 times more likely to die than non-diabetic men.
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30 minutes of daily exercise can help prevent diabetes
While intense exercise has been shown to have a variety of health benefits, moderate exercise may be as good or better when it comes preventing diabetes and heart disease. In a recent study, researchers found that patients who engage in regular moderate exercise improve their overall triglyceride levels, which lowers ones risk for both diabetes and heart disease.
In a study of 240 overweight individuals, researchers randomly assigned middle age participants to one of four groups: 20 miles of jogging per week, 12 miles of jogging a week, 12 miles of walking per week, and no exercise. In the end, only the low/moderate exercise group significantly lowered their level of triglycerides which are an indicator of insulin resistance, a marker for diabetes.
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Aerobic exercise and strength training are powerful medicine for Type II diabetics
Exercise has been a key component of Type II diabetes treatment for years, but up until recently experts were unsure of which types of exercise were the most beneficial and whether or not strength training was necessary at all. New research recently published in the Archives of Internal Medicine has cleared up much of this uncertainty indicating that the combination of both aerobic exercise and muscular conditioning is more beneficial than either form of exercise alone.
Researchers divided participants into four groups: aerobic exercise alone, strength training alone, a combination workout, and no exercise. At the end of the five-month study all three of the exercise groups saw improvements in their blood sugar control, but those in the combination group improved their levels twice as well as either type of exercise did alone.
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Sources
1Sato KK, et al. (2007). Walking to work is an independent predictor of incidence of type 2 diabetes in Japanese men: the Kansai Healthcare Study. Diabetes Care , 30, 2296-8.
2Franco M, et al. (2007). mpact of Energy Intake, Physical Activity, and Population-wide Weight Loss on Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes Mortality in Cuba, 1980 2005. American Journal of Epidemiology , epub.
3Franco OH, Steyerberg EW, Hu FB, Mackenbach J, Nusselder W. (2007). Archives of Internal Medicine , 167, 1145-51.
4Slentz CA, et al. (2007). Inactivity, exercise training and detraining, and plasma lipoproteins. STRRIDE: a randomized, controlled study of exercise intensity and amount. Journal of Applied Physiology , 103, 432-42.
5Archives of Internal Medicine , September 18, 2007.
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