If you’re a woman, you may balk at the idea of lifting weights in lieu of aerobic exercise, but now a new study says there’s a good reason to: It could lower your diabetes risk.
The study, which was published in the health journal PLOS Medicine, reveals that resistance training, such as lifting weights, lowered a woman’s risk of diabetes by a whopping 40 percent–something that ought to motivate women to start pumping iron.
“Notably, women who did more than 150 min/week of these types of exercise had 40% lower risk of developing diabetes as women who did not exercise in this way at all,” write the researchers of the study in the online version of PLOS Medicine. “Type 2 diabetes, which was previously known as adult-onset diabetes, can often initially be controlled with diet and exercise, and with antidiabetic drugs such as metformin and sulfonylureas.”
What Researchers Discovered
Tackling on the Nurses’ Health Study II, a large study which tracked the health of nearly 100,000 women between the ages of 36 and 81, researchers used the data to see if a woman’s exercise habits affected their diabetes risk, which included aerobic and resistance training exercise. The team of researchers involved included experts from the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Southern Denmark.
While examining the study, the researchers looked carefully at their exercise habits on a week to week basis, which was recorded as part of the study, following up for up to four years after the initial start of the study. During the study over 3,400 women developed diabetes–and many of them opted for aerobic exercise over strength training.
After comparing the two variables, the results weren’t so surprising–women who made exercise a priority were less likely to develop diabetes. But it was the type of exercise that decreased their risk the most that surprised researchers.
“These findings show that, among the women enrolled in NHS and NHSII, engagement in muscle-strengthening and conditioning activities lowered the risk of type 2 diabetes independent of aerobic MVPA,” say researchers. “That is, non-aerobic exercise provided protection against diabetes in women who did no aerobic exercise. Importantly, they also show that doing both aerobic exercise and muscle-strengthening exercise substantially reduced the risk of type 2 diabetes.”
And while researchers won’t say if exercise could prevent diabetes, it’s definitely something you shouldn’t skip out on, say researchers–previous reports also show exercise alone may significantly reduce a woman’s diabetes risk.
What You Should Do
To lower your diabetes risk, simply exercising isn’t enough, according to recent research–you also need to strength train too. To reap these benefits, experts recommend strength training for at least 150 minutes per week (that’s around 21 minutes per day). Other resistance training options, such as using resistance bands, are also good substitutes.
Readers: What are some other lifestyle measures you take to reduce your diabetes risk?
Sources:
Study: Strength Training Good for Reducing Diabetes Risk in Women – PLOSMedicine.org
Strength Training Reduces Diabetes Risk by 40 Percent in Women – HuffingtonPost.com
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