For lowering your diabetes risk, moderate-intensity exercise may be best

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Exercise helps lower the risk for Type 2 diabetes -- but does more exercise help lower that risk further?

Maybe not. Moderate-intensity exercise appears to be more helpful than vigorous exercise, according to a study just published in the journal Diabetes Care.

Scientists at Duke University Medical Center studied 230 overweight and sedentary adults ages 45 to 65. They were divided into four groups, one of which got no exercise plan and the other three of which received a particular exercise regimen on treadmills and elliptical trainers:

1) low exercise amount, moderate intensity (10 miles a week).

2) low exercise amount, high intensity (10 miles a week).

3) high exercise amount, high intensity (17 miles a week).

After eight months, the sensitivity of the body to insulin, which regulates blood sugar, was better in all the exercise groups compared with that of the control group’s members (whose blood sugar levels went up). But the moderate-intensity group -- which had regimen No. 1 -- showed the most improvement.

The researchers aren’t entirely sure why this is, but their best bet is that moderate-intensity exercise causes the body to burn more fat than does high-intensity exercise and that fat metabolism may help the pancreas work more effectively.

-- Rosie Mestel