Treating Diabetes With Exercise

by Denny Santi

Although exercise cannot replace medical therapy, especially for people whose life depends on medicines, exercise is useful for sufferers of both types of diabetes (insulin- dependent and noninsulin-dependent) because of its positive effects over glucose metabolism. Exercise can be practiced stand-alone or combined with a diet and taking medicines.

Exercise helps diabetes sufferers in many ways. Weight is easier controlled when exercising regularly. Blood sugar level, which is a major concern for all diabetes sufferers, is lowered, thanks to exercise. Additionally, exercise lessens the probability of a heart disease, which is also very wide-spread among diabetes sufferers.

Also, by improving one's general condition, exercise contributes to minimizing the long-term complications from diabetes. Regular exercise can not only improve the condition of diabetes sufferers but possibly can even prevent diabetes in people who are prone to develop this disease.

Despite the numerous advantages of exercise, do not underestimate the risks. Let your doctor decide if taking exercise is recommendable for you and if yes ~ what kind of exercise will be less risky. One of the dangers for diabetes sufferers are that exercise might change your reaction to insulin or might lead to an abrupt drop in blood sugar level, which is another risk for you.

Although most of the general advice for exercising applies to diabetes sufferers as well, there are some items that are especially important for them to follow. It is generally recommended to wear comfortable shoes and clothes, while exercising, but in the case of a diabetes sufferer it is even more important. Why? Because a single blister on your foot can lead to a serious infection that will not heal easy.

It is also very important to drink water and fluids of any kind, while exercising. Your body sweats in order to cool itself and you need to compensate for the sweat by in-taking more fluids, otherwise you can get dehydrated. And dehydration is dangerous because it impacts the blood sugar level.

So, what kind of exercise is recommended? Exercise can be any physical activity - from cleaning the house, to regularly climbing the stairs, to strength training. It all depends on the physical condition.

Generally, household chores that take 20-30 minutes a day and do not require much effort reduce the daily insulin requirement and are risk free. Also, many doctors usually recommend aerobic exercise - walking, jogging, bicycling, or aerobics.

If you have problems with the nerves in the legs or feet, then chair exercises, bicycling, or swimming can be a wise choice, because they do not strain the lower limbs. If you do not have problems with the lower limbs, then you can undertake walking or jogging.

For younger diabetes sufferers or for people who have no diabetes-related complications, even strength training is a safe choice. The advantage of strength training is that it burns more calories, thus decreasing the lean mass and reducing weight. Also, when muscles are active they demand more glucose thus helping to regulate the glucose metabolism. But strength training must be done only after a doctor has approved it and preferably in the presence of a personal trainer.

Body by Science: A Research Based Program to Get the Results You Want in 12 Minutes a Week by Doug McGuff and John Little

Tags: diabetes exercise