High-intensity exercise may prevent diabetes

A few minutes of intense exercise a week is just as good as a half-hour of moderate physical activity a day for reducing a person's risk of developing type 2 diabetes.Current exercise guidelines for preventing diabetes recommend at least 30 minutes of exercise a day at least five days a week, but people fail to follow such regimes due to lack of time, motivation and adherence. To investigate whether high-intensity exercise just once a week could help prevent diabetes, researchers from UK made 16 men in their early 20s do six sessions of exercise, each including four to six 30-second sprints interspersed with four-minute rest periods. The time for each session ranged from 17 to 26 minutes.It was found that young sedentary men who did just 15 minutes of all-out sprinting on an exercise bike spread out over two weeks substantially improved their ability to metabolise glucose (sugar). Traditional aerobic exercise programmes can boost sensitivity to the key blood-sugar-regulating hormone insulin. The high-intensity programme did this too, but it also directly reduced the men's blood sugar levels, something that standard exercise programmes have not been able to.Based on the above findings, the researchers recommended four to six 30-second bouts of intense exercise, such as cycling or running up stairs, twice a week. While this is appropriate for people 20 to 40 years old who are in good health but not fit, people with diabetes or heart disease should gradually increase their activity under a doctor's supervision.