Moderate exercise might be more effective at combatting pre-diabetes

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-07/dumc-mem071816.php

Public Release: 18-Jul-2016
Moderate exercise might be more effective at combatting pre-diabetes
Duke University Medical Center

Walking briskly on a regular basis may be more effective than vigorous jogging for improving glucose control in individuals with pre-diabetes, according to research from Duke Health.

The findings, published online July 15 in the journal Diabetologia, are the result of a randomized, six-month study of 150 participants, each of whom was designated as having pre-diabetes based on elevated fasting glucose levels.

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"Another way to say it is that a high amount of moderate-intensity exercise alone provided nearly the same benefit on glucose tolerance that we see in the gold standard of fat and calorie restriction along with exercise," said Cris Slentz, Ph.D., a study co-author and assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology at Duke.

Kraus and Slentz said the study's results could reflect the different ways in which high- and moderate-intensity exercise impact the body.

"High-intensity exercise tends to burn glucose more than fat, while moderate-intensity exercise tends to burn fat more than glucose," Kraus said. "We believe that one benefit of moderate-intensity exercise is that it burns off fat in the muscles, which relieves the block of glucose uptake by the muscles. That's important because muscle is the major place to store glucose after a meal," Kraus said.

The authors note that only a diabetes outcome study could determine whether moderate-intensity exercise is actually superior to high-intensity exercise at preventing patients with pre-diabetes from progressing to diabetes. Still, Kraus said the study's results could provide manageable alternatives for pre-diabetic patients.

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