A new study suggests combining resistance training with aerobic is more beneficial to patients with type 2 diabetes than using just one approach.
Doctors believe the exercise benefits patients with type 2 diabetes in controlling their blood sugars. It helps the body use insulin, which controls blood sugar levels, aids in weight loss as it burns extra fat, strengthens the muscles and bones, reduces harmful cholestoral, cuts risk to heart disease and stroke, boosts energy, and reduces stress.
Lukas Schwingshackl, lead author of the study and researcher from the University of Vienna, and his colleagues looked at 14 studies involving more than 900 participants diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. The team wanted to find out whether exercises such as resistance training, aerobic, or both, could effectively improve the condition of the patients.
"Combined aerobic and resistance training can be recommended as part of a lifestyle program in the management of type 2 diabetes wherever possible," Schwingshackl told Healthday News.
The researchers admitted that further study is needed to establish their findings.
An expert confirmed both exercises are effective in controlling the blood sugar of the patients, but have different effects.
"Resistance training builds muscles and thereby increases glucose utilization through increased muscle mass, aerobic training burns glucose on the spot,"" said Dr. Gerald Bernstein, director of the Diabetes Management Program at the Friedman Diabetes Institute, to Healthday News.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend moderate exercises for at least 30 minutes for five days or more in a week. But, it also warned those with certain diabetes complications such as eye, blood vessel, or blood pressure problems to avoid some kinds of physical activity especially lifting weights.
The results of the study were published in the July 2 issue of Diabetologia.
