Does Regular Exercise Help To Stop The Development Of Type 2 Diabetes?

In a word, yes! Regular exercise of at least moderate intensity provides some benefits against the onset of type 2 diabetes. Exercise improves insulin resistance and hence makes insulin more efficient at removing glucose from the blood. In patients with prediabetes exercise can stop the progression of elevated glucose values toward the diabetic range, or even restore them to normal. Exercise also consumes calories from those stored in the exercising muscle as starch and the need to replenish these stores draws glucose out of the bloodstream and as a result reduces the circulating levels. Exercise also helps to achieve a healthy body weight and prevent the weight gain that can lead to diabetes. Weight loss is much more dependent on restriction of caloric intake. Needless to say, exercise is clearly crucial in maintaining weight reduction. Further, it is worth noting that exercise has beneficial effects on the other risk factors that combine with diabetes to cause vascular issues. For example, exercise increases the good (HDL) Cholesterol and improves levels of other blood fats. While lowering blood pressure and improving cardiovascular response. In addition to using exercise as a means of controlling diabetes, drugs are instrumental as well. Metformin and Acarbose are two of such drugs used to slow the progression of the condition. Early use of these drugs that are approved to treat type 2 diabetes has been shown to prevent or halt the onset of the disease. Whether this represents prevention of diabetes or pretreatment of diabetes is not conclusively known. However, to truly be considered prevention, the drug needs to modify the course and progression of the underlying factors leading to the disease and not merely lower the blood sugar. It should be noted that one must be very cautious in promoting the use of oral antidiabetic drugs in this fashion.